Fantastic Children 2: Lost Souls
by Inkwolf-at-last
Summary: 16-year-old Ian Cole is reunited with his friends and colleagues for another desperate mission.  This time, the fate of both Earth and Greecia may hang in the balance.
1. Ch 1 Ian: The continuation of the dream

Chapter 1: Ian: The continuation of the dream.

"Far, far below, beneath the crystal clear and shining deep blue sea,

A tiny little flower sleeps so peacefully.

Soft and gentle breezes sing a quiet tune while flying through rainbows,

And all the fish are playing in the sky to and fro."

The baby Ian held in his arms stopped squalling and settled into curious silence, looking up at his sixteen-year-old cousin as they rocked on the porch together. Ian smiled down at the newborn. Another family member. The thought sent a stab of delight though him. The baby was moist and warm and gave off a curious smell of baby powder and milk.

"Didn't I tell you?" Belle said triumphantly to her Aunt Sarah. "My big brother is awesome with kids."

"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it," the frazzled Aunt Sarah said. "Ian, would you like to move in with us? Just till the little ones grow up and move out."

Ian laughed, His three other cousins were carrying out some sort of violent game that involved a lot of shouting and swinging sticks at each other, and Aunt Sarah hurried off, shrieking that they were going to put their eyes out if they weren't more careful.

"That was a lovely song you were singing," Ian's mother said. "Where did you learn it?"

"From you, silly," Ian laughed again. "You used to sing it to me when I was little. Don't you remember?"

"I'm sure I would remember if I had," his mother said. "You must be mistaken." Her face kept smiling, but her eyes took on that worried cast that appeared whenever he said or did something strange.

Ian tried hard not to worry her. Once he had run away from home and been missing for several years. Oddly, he had no memory of the time he was gone, but only knew he was very happy to be home again, and that he had caused his family more than their share of worry and grief. He did his best to make up for that, but his mother still panicked whenever he was unexpectedly away from home, or late from school, or when he said things that…well…had nothing to do with reality.

Ian had no idea where some of his strange thoughts and memories came from. Half-remembered dreams, perhaps. But this song, he remembered this song. He remembered sitting in his mother's lap, listening to her sing it, looking up at her…

The face in his memory was not his mother's. It was a woman with white hair in long braids, woven in curls around her head in a strange fashion. Could it have been his grandmother? Or some nursemaid or babysitter? But no, her face was young and filled with love, and his heart knew her as his mother.

If Ian had not seen his own birth certificate and countless baby pictures of himself, he might have wondered if he had been adopted. He carefully hid his own confusion, saying only, "How strange. I must have heard it somewhere else. Belle, would you like to hold Earnest for a while?"

Though the incident passed without further remark, it created an undercurrent of tension that lasted the rest of the day. Ian was not sorry when the time came to depart and catch the last ferry home to Sanceli Island. He closed his eyes and pretended to nap on the way home, as the sun set over the ocean.

They arrived home after dark, Ian carrying their luggage into the house. It was, as always, a pleasure to be home again. Belle hurried away to check that the automatic feeder had kept her fish alive, while Mother collapsed on the couch and rubbed her sore feet. "Home at last!" she said. "I hope Sarah will be all right. A new baby and those three…."

"Hellions?" Ian suggested. "Monsters? Demons!" Mother threw a cushion at him.

"Really, Ian, how can you talk about your cousins that way?" she demanded. "Though they are a bit on the rowdy side. Run out and get the mail, there's a dear."

Chuckling, Ian stepped out of the cottage to remove a week's worth of mail from the delivery box. He sorted it on his way back to the house in the dim light of the yard lamp. A handful of advertising could go straight to recycling. Belle had a postcard from one of her school friends, and Ian's Modern Science magazine had arrived, with an article about quasars advertised on the cover. He would enjoy reading that.

He flipped without much interest through the remaining envelopes as he stepped into the house—bills and other dull matters for his mother to deal with—until he saw the last letter and froze.

The Rugen Institute, the envelope said. Above the name and return address was a strange logo. It depicted the lower half of a sphere, surmounted by a small shaft on the left supporting a small sphere, and a larger shaft on the right, crossed by a thin crescent. It was strangely, eerily familiar. Ian was seized by a sense of foreboding, tinged with excitement.

"What is it, Ian?" The tension had returned to his mother's voice, as if she could sense his perturbation. "The Rugen Institute," she read over his shoulder. "Who are they? And why are they writing you? Open it, dear."

Ian had been so focused on the unsettling logo he had not even noticed the envelope was addressed to him. Reluctantly he tore it open and unfolded the letter from within.

"Greetings," he read. "The Rugen Institute is an organization dedicated to the advancement of education and the betterment of the human condition through science. This year the Institute has elected to offer several full scholarships to students who have shown remarkable aptitude in the field of science or who have otherwise displayed unusual talents which our organization wishes to advance. A preliminary interview will be conducted at the Rugen Institute's main office on Kuril Island.

"It has a date and time, and a map to the pier on the mainland where the ferry will be," said Ian. His mother was getting that panicked expression again. "And it says that accommodations will be provided for myself and any family members who attend with me."

"I can't possibly take more time off work," Mother said.

"It's all right," Ian said. "I don't have to go."

"You DO have to go!" she answered. "Ian, it's a full scholarship! I know you want to study astrophysics. I've been wondering how we could possibly afford it. There's no way we can turn our backs on an offer like this!"

"There will be other scholarships," Ian said firmly.

"You're going," his mother said. She laughed nervously. "You're a young man, now, Ian. Any day now you'll be setting out on your own, and it's high time I got over needing to know where you are every minute."

"I could go with him!" Belle piped up from across the room. "Can I? Please? School doesn't start for two weeks yet!"

"Well, I don't know…" Ian could see that his mother was torn between the idea of having Belle watch over him and see that he returned, and fear that she might lose both her children at once.

"I don't mind. It's your decision, Belle," Ian said.

And so it was that, three days later, Belle ran onto the Kuril Island ferry with a squeal of delight, running headlong into the young captain of the boat, who was carrying some of the other passengers' luggage. The bags went flying, one of them splashing into the water.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Belle cried, as a blond girl shouted, "My suitcase!"

"Don't worry, I'll get it!" the captain said as he hurled himself over the railing. He landed in the water with a splash, emerging from the foam to lift the dripping bag over his head and toss back it onto the ferry with a grin. "Hey, you better see if anything in there got wet!" he called unnecessarily. The blond girl had already opened the suitcase and was hastily removing items. Ian dropped beside her without a word and lent a hand. Enough water had seeped into the case to dampen some of the clothes, and Ian removed and hastily wiped down some wet books, hoping they hadn't been ruined.

"I really am sorry!" Belle said again.

"It's all right." The blond girl smiled up at her. "It was an accident. My name's Flo. Are you here for the Rugen scholarships?"

"My big brother is," Belle said. "I'm just along for the ride. I'm Belle."

"I'm Ian," Ian said. "Nice to meet you." There was something about the girl that put him at ease. Almost a sense of familiarity, as if they had known each other for years. "Have we met?" he asked.

"I…I'm not sure." Flo was returning his intent stare, in the back of her eyes the same sense of confusion Ian felt.

"Big brother," Belle finally said, a hint of irritation in her voice. "Aren't you forgetting our suitcases?"

"What, can't you get them?" But Ian finally tore his eyes away from Flo's and headed back to the pier, where his mother stood. The captain was there, too, wringing water out of his trouser legs. Ian hadn't taken a good look at him before. He seemed young, no older than Ian himself.

"Hey!" the captain shouted again, waving wildly at someone coming down the pier. "Are you looking for the Kuril Island charter? That's me! Welcome aboard the Star Princess!"

"Looks more like the Scar Princess," grumbled the round-faced boy approaching the battered boat.

"Now, Kalie," admonished the man behind him, visibly the boy's father. He had the same round face and turned-up nose as his son. A fat old dog waddled in their wake.

The captain's enthusiasm didn't dim at all. "Oh, she may look a little rough now, but you should have seen her when I salvaged her! Every time I get a charter, the Princess gets a little prettier. And with what they're paying me for this trip, she'll be getting a total refit! Hey, are you looking for the Kuril Island ferry? You've found it! Let me take your bags, sir!" He was waving at a new arrival, a thin boy with a gentle smile. The captain seized his suitcases, and that of the boy named Kalie, and bounded up the plank again.

Ian turned to his mother. Her eyes were damp. "I don't suppose I have to tell you to look after your sister," she said.

Ian hugged her. "Don't worry," he said. "We'll be back in a few days. I give you my word." After a few moments, they separated, and after leaning down and giving her a last kiss on the cheek, Ian bent down to pick up the suitcases. They were gone. The energetic captain was running back onto the boat carrying them. Ian followed him at a slower pace, and was followed in turn by Kalie, who had been saying farewell to his father.

"That's everybody, then," the captain called, pulling in the gangplank. "Welcome aboard the Star Princess! I will be your pilot for this journey. My name is Thoma. You can call me…Captain Thoma! Hold on to your socks, boys and girls: three hours to Kuril Island!"

The engines kicked in, and the ferry moved away from the dock. Ian and Belle waved to their mother. She stood on the dock, waving a handkerchief until she was lost from sight, as if she believed she would never set eyes on them again.


	2. Chap 2: Pollux: The Butterfly & the Wasp

Chapter 2: Pollux: The Butterfly and the Wasp

Swiftly the wasp flies

The butterfly drifts softly

To the same blossom

The wasp flies at 250 km/ph. The butterfly drifts at 10 km/ph. They start at the same place, and reach the same flower simultaneously. If they each traveled 27 km, how much earlier must the butterfly have started? Round to the nearest minute.

Castor Weaver scrawled the final answer on his paper and slid it toward the examiner with thinly veiled contempt. He looked away as the man examined the test paper. Pollux could feel his twin's irritation, but it was nothing new. Castor had been born angry.

"You got the answers right, but you didn't show the steps you took to arrive at them," the examiner finally said.

"Does it really matter?" A tall, red-haired woman shifted her position impatiently at the end of the table. "He's barely five years old. Not even."

"And you want me to issue him a high school equivalency degree," the examiner said. "If I'm going to do that, he needs to perform on the test the same way a high school student would, Doctor Mellert. "

Pollux gave the examiner his own test, once he had finished. He had carefully marked out the steps to each math problem, after the rebuke to Castor. It had been the most difficult part of the test: while the answers had come easily, he was unsure exactly how he had worked them out, and trying to write it down was like trying to diagram every movement of your tongue when you spoke a sentence, or chart every muscle and how it moved when you took a step.

As the examiner checked the paper, Castor got up from his seat, bored, and pulled one of the books from the tall, metal shelves. The company library was empty except for the four at the table, most of the large room in darkness. Castor returned to his seat and buried his face in an ancient, musty leather-bound book. He pulled a blank sheet of paper toward himself and began copying out a diagram of an intricate mandala.

The examiner put down Pollux's paper. "Perfect," he said with a smile. "Well done."

Pollux smiled back. The pleasure he felt at the man's approval was a small bright spot in a life that had become increasingly dark.

"So, will you issue the certificates?" Doctor Mellert asked.

Reluctantly, the examiner opened a leather folder and began filling out forms. "You do realize," he said as he wrote, "that even if the boys are exempted from school, they are still protected by the national child welfare laws. That includes labor restrictions."

"I assure you that Brightwater Industries—and I personally—take our guardianship very seriously. Considering the incredible accomplishments of the Weaver twins already, the company's best interests clearly lie in giving them unlimited opportunities to continue their education. With their mental abilities and the resources we can provide, there's no limit to the advances they may make in modern technology. By the time they're old enough to shave, they may have already revolutionized technology, or even saved the world. In view of what their inventions have done to avert the potential environmental catastrophes that—excuse me." Mellert got up, pulling out her buzzing cell phone, and walked a short distance away. Pollux could hear half of the conversation. "Can this wait? Already? Good…good…"

"Kid." Pollux looked at the examiner, who was pulling something out of his wallet. It was a business card, and he slid it across the table, speaking softly. "If you ever need to talk to someone, if things go bad around here, feel free to give me a call."

Pollux took the card and slipped it into his shirt pocket. Things had gone bad a long time ago, and he doubted this man could do anything about it, but the card was a shred of hope resting in his pocket.

"There's something about all this that just feels…" The examiner broke off as Doctor Mellert returned to the table, snapping her phone shut briskly.

"That was Baldwin," she said. "The Weavers have signed the papers and custody has been officially transferred. Castor and Pollux Weaver are now legal wards of Brightwater Industries. Baldwin's bringing down the paperwork, if you'd like to see it."

"That won't be necessary." The examiner stood, gathering his papers and test booklets. "The education board will deal with the legalities. Unless there is some unexpected hitch along, the way, the certificates should be processed within the week."

"Well, good day, then."

The examiner bowed slightly and walked to the door. Before he left, he hesitated. "It may not be my place to say so," he burst out, "but this is wrong. How can a corporation adopt a child? Children need a home and a family. They need-"

"Some people say it takes a village to raise a child," Mellert said. "We're much more efficient than a village."

The man looked as if he wanted to say something else, but bit it back. He closed the door behind him with just a little more force than was strictly polite.

The door immediately opened again, and Baldwin came in, looking back over his shoulder.

"Let's have a look," called Doctor Mellert cheerfully. Baldwin put a file on the table in front of her, and she withdrew a handful of legal papers. "Excellent. I was afraid things might drag out for months."

"The Weavers were perfectly willing to sign," said Baldwin. "We've discharged their medical debts as agreed, and arranged a generous annuity. They told me they've already put a down payment on a new house."

"You saw our parents?" Pollux asked. "Are they all right? How were they? Did you say they were-"

"They're fine," Baldwin snapped. "Don't concern yourself over them, they have been well taken care of."

"I want them to have my share of the profits," Pollux insisted. "Everything coming to me for my share of our work. Send it all to them, okay?"

Baldwin and Mellert exchanged a quick glance, and Baldwin said, "That can be arranged." He shifted his square-rimmed eyeglasses as he turned to Castor. "Shall we do the same for you?"

Castor did not even look up. "It doesn't matter," he said.

Baldwin suddenly noticed what Castor was doing, and his pinched face grew even tighter. He snatched up the paper the boy was drawing on. It was now covered in meticulously rendered pentacles, Aztec suns, and other mystic symbols.

"Stop wasting your time on this superstitious nonsense," Baldwin snapped, wadding the paper into a ball. "You could be furthering your studies, Pollux. There are—"

"It's Castor," Professor Mellert interrupted. "Really, Baldwin, they aren't even identical, you have no excuse. And he may as well enjoy himself while he can. Once the legalities are out of the way we can set out for Sei Station, and there will be plenty of work for him to do there. Both of them." She shuffled the papers back into the file and stood, looking at her watch. "I need to clear our travel plans with Accounting. Do you think there's time before the meeting with the Swedish committee?"

"Carson is in his office," said Baldwin. "I saw him on the way here."

"Right, let's go, then. Don't stay up too late, boys." Doctor Mellert left. Baldwin, with a final unfriendly glare, tossed the wad of paper into the wastebasket and followed her out the door.

The room was silent. Pollux slid off the adult-sized chair and retrieved the paper wad from the wastebasket, handing it to Castor.

"It isn't important," Castor said, but he unrolled the crumpled paper, smoothing it out on the tabletop with the edge of his hand. "People are idiots. You would think by now they would have evolved enough to recognize a circuit board diagram, even if it isn't designed to channel electricity."

"Well, someone drew it in the first place," Pollux pointed out. Castor only snorted.

Their mother had been in and out of the hospital all their lives, with one health problem or another. A sudden attack had returned her to medical care unexpectedly one morning, and their father, unable to find someone to look after them, had taken his four-year-old sons to work with him. He had been catering for a meeting at the Brightwater building, and the boys had had stern orders to keep quiet, keep out of trouble, and keep out of sight of the attending scientists and stockholders.

But Father had been busy refilling the coffee urn when the schematic of the newly redesigned climate regulator was projected. His first hint that something had gone wrong was the wave of laughter when the strange, silent little boy had wandered onto the stage.

The laughter died away and was replaced by dumbfounded silence as Castor pointed out major design flaws in the schematic, suggested improvements, and finally completely redesigned the heat collecting circuit on the whiteboard with an erasable marker.

The story caused a sensation in the press before it was quashed, and both twins were subjected to a battery of physical and mental tests. Brightwater quickly negotiated a contact with Weavers, who were deeply in debt, for exclusive access to the boys and their future work.

And now, it seemed, Castor and Pollux belonged to Brightwater entirely.

"Do you think they'll let us visit Mom and Dad? Before we go to Sei Station?" Pollux asked.

"Why would you want to?" Castor asked. Didn't you hear Baldwin? They sold us."

"No!" Pollux protested. "It's not like that! I'm sure they only did what they had to. What they thought was best for everybody."

"If you say so." Pollux could feel his brother's cynicism. He had always been able to feel Castor's emotions. He did not think Castor could feel his. At any rate, Pollux did not dare to ask. Because if it turned out that Castor did understand his feelings, then it was clear that he simply did not care.

Pollux felt his shirt pocket. The little cardboard rectangle was still there.

"You know he'll have forgotten all about us by tomorrow," said Castor.

"Who?" asked Pollux, jerking his hand away from his pocket. "I don't know what you're talking about."

A tight smile appeared on Castor's face. "Sei Station ought to be interesting, anyway. I bet there are no child labor laws in Antarctica."

"I'm going to bed," said Pollux shortly.

"Or telephones," Castor called as Pollux slammed the library door behind himself.


	3. Chapter 3 Teo: Small Planet

Chapter 3: Teo: Small Planet

Teo took a deep breath of sea air and let all the tension leave his body with it. He had not thought that the day would come when he was relieved to be leaving home. He loved his sister Serena, and was happy she was in love and going to be married, but he did wish that she had fallen in love with someone he actually liked.

Lately Rogan had been casually asking questions about whether Teo planned to go to college, and exactly when, or whether he had been looking for a part-time job yet, and even about which of the siblings actually owned the house their parents had left them. Even Serena seemed to be impatient with him lately. He knew he was not precisely unwanted, but his presence was clearly tolerated rather than welcomed.

His life at school was much the same. He got along most of his classmates, but couldn't say anyone was particularly his friend. A strange sense of non-belonging had caused him to hold back from getting close to anyone.

Even now, only he stood alone on the boat. From the bow, he could hear the boy captain chattering ceaselessly to someone unseen. Over on one bench, Ian and Flo talked together like old friends reunited, Ian's sister hovering near them and looking slightly peeved. Even Kalie, sitting immersed in a mecha manga, was not alone. An old dog sat leaning against his leg and snoring.

And yet Teo felt strangely connected to all of them, perhaps because they were all here for the same purpose. Usually reluctant to talk to strangers, he sat next to Kalie and patted the snoozing dog. "They allow dogs at the Rugen institute?"

"They said that accommodations would be provided for family members," Kalie said. "Wonder is a member of the family. If they don't like it, they can give my scholarship to Captain Enthusiasm, there." At the front of the boat, Thoma was shouting something about dolphins.

"Dolphins, Ian!" Belle said ecstatically, grabbing her brother by the arm. "Let's go see!"

"I've seen dolphins before," said Ian, but he good-naturedly let his sister drag him to the rail.

"What a brat," Kalie muttered.

"I get the feeling she's used to having her brother to herself," said Teo. "Want to go see the dolphins?"

Kalie shrugged. "Why not?" He put down his book and they joined the cluster at the bow of the ferry. Although Kalie acted tough and disinterested, Teo saw that he leaned over the rail just as eagerly as Belle did.

Just before the bow, the sleek black finned backs of a pod of dolphins leaped and played. When he looked straight down, Teo could see them under the water, keeping pace with the boat.

"They're good omens," Captain Thoma called down from the wheelhouse. "Don't fall in, now, it's a long swim to Kuril Island."

Kalie stepped back from the rail, and as he did, a memory was triggered in Teo's mind.

"You!" he said excitedly. "I know why you look so familiar! I saw your picture in the news. You won that big Robot Wars thing a couple of months ago."

"Fourth year running," Kalie said proudly. "I've already started building next year's robot. Are you into robotics engineering, too?"

"I'm more interested in nanotechnology," Teo said. "I don't know how the Rugen Institute heard of me, unless my science teacher volunteered me. What are you into?" he asked, turning to the others.

"Biochemistry, but I've certainly never been in the news for it," Flo said.

"Astrophysics," said Ian. "How about you?" He turned to a girl Teo hadn't seen before, who was sitting quietly and sketching in a notebook. She was quite beautiful, but her brown hair was rapidly escaping her ponytail and whipping in the wind.

She shook her head and laughed. "I have no idea. I'm not particularly good at anything."

"Don't talk that way, Helga!" Captain Thoma said. "She's an amazing artist! You should see her stuff!"

"I'm not that good," Helga said.

"What are you talking about? It's incredible!" Thoma yelped. Helga turned pink as everyone leaned over to stare at the sketchpad.

"It's just a doodle," she said, holding it out so they could see. The sketch was very rough. She had captured the leaping forms of the dolphins in a few clean, curved lines. In a corner of the page was a more detailed drawing of a seagull perched on the rail.

"My letter said that they were offering scholarships in science and other fields," Ian said. "Maybe you're up for an art scholarship."

"I'm not that good," Helga repeated.

"You're right. You're not," said Kalie bluntly.

"Hey!" Thoma shouted, outraged.

"Well, it's certainly better than I could do," Flo said, giving Kalie a look.

"Just being honest," Kalie muttered.

"Helga and I are old friends," Thoma said, still glaring a bit. "I was sure surprised when she was on the passenger list! You know, once we ran away together when we were kids!"

"Really?" Flo laughed. "What happened?"

"Oh, she was living in this terrible orphanage, and got away with a friend. We hid out on Kokkuri Island for a while, until my mother caught me stealing food and made them come home with us," Thoma said. "I don't remember much about it. She stayed with us for a few days, until the orphanage people picked her up again."

"How awful! You had to go back?"

"It was all right," Helga said. "There was a new director, and it was much better afterward."

"Yeah, the bad guy got canned," said Thoma. "And her friend got adopted a little later, too. How is Chitto, have you heard from him lately?"

"Not lately. His family travels around a lot. The last time I heard from him-"

"Sorry, I think I'd better go to the back of the boat," Teo said abruptly, pushing his way through the others.

"Is something wrong?" Ian asked.

"I just don't want to be seasick over the dolphins," Teo gulped.

"Pah! Mainlanders!" said Thoma. "I'll try not to hit too many bumps!"

The queasy sensation that had been building since the boat started moving had taken a sudden turn for the worse. Teo spent the rest of the trip hunched over the rail. The others occasionally approached to ask if he was feeling any better, or helpfully called out comments like "Only one more hour more to go, Teo!" for the rest of the trip.

By the time they arrived on the island, his knees were so wobbly he had to be supported by Thoma and Ian as he descended from the ferry.

It felt good to be on solid ground again. Lying on the clipped grass, he closed his eyes so as not to see the clouds blowing by. They made him feel like he was moving again.

"Are you all right?" Teo opened his eyes. A dark-haired woman was looking down at him with concern.

"He's just been a little seasick," Flo said. "He needs some time."

"No, I'm all right," Teo said hastily. He swayed a little when he got to his feet, and Ian and Thoma stood by to steady him. "I said I'm all right," Teo protested. He looked around.

"Wow," he said. Behind a stone wall and at the end of a winding garden path stood a beautiful, enormous building, the main part of it round with a domed roof. It was made of white marble, accented with carvings and pillars. A billboard on the stone wall proclaimed it to be The Rugen Institute, the sign's background a pale image of the odd logo from his envelope.

"If you're feeling better, I'll go get your suitcase, "Captain Thoma said. Teo watched the boy go back to the ferry, and his eye was caught by something in the harbor.

It was a large, white machine, floating above the waves somehow. Teo realized he was not the only one looking at it. The others stared, eyes wide and mouths hanging open. Helga seemed particularly entranced. Thoma seemed unaffected, though, and Belle was looking baffled.

"I see you've noticed our water purification tower," the woman said. "That tower provides for all the Institute's water needs by purifying sea water. It also recycles waste water and filters pollutants from the ocean. Our water purifiers are in use in seventeen countries, and it's likely that before long they will be common worldwide. Our institute's logo features an image of the prototype tower."

By the time she had finished speaking, everyone had torn their eyes from the tower. What is it, Teo wondered. Why did he want to keep staring at the water tower, as if it was the answer to a lost dream?

"I'm Gherta Hawksbee, the director of the Institute," the woman continued, "and it's a pleasure to welcome you all today. I'm sure you're all tired and hungry after your trip, so without more ado, please join us for dinner."

They followed Gherta through the main hall of the building, where many other members of the Institute were waiting to call out greetings. In the institute's cafeteria, a long table was laden, and servers began to dish out food as soon as they sat down. Teo thought it a little odd that Thoma joined them, but then a bowl was provided for Wonder, and Teo decided the people at the Institute must just like any guest, without concern whether they were a scientist or hireling, or even an animal. If not many people visited here, the island must be lonely.

Teo had no desire to eat anything yet. He sipped at a glass of cold water, trying hard not to even look at the food. His stomach continued to feel queasy, but he was not certain whether it was seasickness any longer.

There was something odd about Doctor Hawksbee, Teo thought. As enthusiastically as she had greeted them, as happily as she was chatting with Flo, there was something in her eyes that made Teo nervous. Behind the smile was a look of sadness, desperation, possibly even terror.

It was probably just a delusion brought on by motion sickness and too much sun, Teo decided. He tried to make small talk with the scientist who sat beside him, but the conversation was forced. He just didn't feel the instant camaraderie he had experienced with Kalie, Ian, Gherta and the rest.

Gherta? When had he started thinking of Doctor Hawksbee as one of the group?

"Doctor Hawksbee," Kalie called. "You say that the water tower filters sea water and waste water? How does it work? How is it all kept separate?"

"Industrial secret," said Gherta, winking.

Teo stopped sipping the water. He was glad when the meal ended, and Doctor Hawksbee asked them to join her in the amphitheater for an orientation.

"Only those who have been specifically invited," she said apologetically to Belle. "If you'd like, I can have someone give you a tour of the research facilities."

"That's all right," Belle said hastily. "I'll just take a walk around the island."

"Could you take Wonder with you?" Kalie asked. "She probably needs a walk."

"Sure," Belle said. "Come on, Wonder, good doggie!"

"Don't wear her out!" Kalie warned as he went through the door into the amphitheater. "She's old!"

"Thoma, don't go," Professor Hawksbee said. "Could you please join us?"

"If you say so," Captain Thoma said, obviously surprised.

The room was darkened. Tiers of seats faced a stage on which stood a podium, a microphone, and an odd, spherical machine. They all made their way down the aisle and sat in the front row.

"What is that thing?" Flo asked as Doctor Hawksbee made her way to the podium.

"It looks a little like the projectors they use in planetariums," Ian said. "Do you think we'll get an astronomy lesson?"

"It's going to project a laser light show," Thoma predicted. "Professor Hawksbee has lured us here to carry out her secret ambition of giving a rock concert! Hey, my mom's a fortune teller, I know these things."

There were muffled giggles all down the row. When Teo turned back to the stage, though, his smile evaporated.

It had not been his imagination. Professor Hawksbee stood by the strange machine, all pretence gone. Her face was a mask of sorrow, despair and guilt.

"The first thing I want you to remember," she said, "is how very, very sorry I am to do this."

She turned on the machine.

Teo's brain went numb.

Then things began to flicker and come alive, as if a million tiny switches were turning on in his head.

He remembered the desperate race to stop Georca's scheme. He remembered Thoma collapsing and screaming in horror at recalled memories. He remembered the long search for Helga.

He remembered the postcard and slipping out of the house in the dark of night.

He remembered being born.

He remembered dying.

He remembered Serafine lying dead among her paintings.

He remembered being Henri.

He remembered…and remembered…and remembered.

As the recollections of Greecia came to him, the illuminations firing off in his memory slowed and eventually stopped. He staggered to his feet, lost in a fog of confusion.

Someone seized his arm. He had been sitting next to Flo.

"Hasmodai," she said.

"Soreto," he replied. He had not spoken that name in over five years. But he knew her longer and better than he had known Teo.

"Tarlant?" he said to Kalie.

"Hasmodai," Tarlant confirmed. Yes, he was Hasmodai again. He looked at the others. Tina looked stricken. Thoma's face was buried in his hands with the horror of Sess's past memories, new and fresh once more. Tarlant and Soreto looked as baffled and befogged as Hasmodai felt himself. Reawakening had never been this disorienting or upsetting before. He turned to Ian—Agi, the one who always seemed to know what to do, who always led the way.

Agi stood, pale and shaking, and took a step toward Doctor Hawksbee. "Mel," Hasmodai whispered softly.

But Agi did not speak her name. The word that came from his lips was, "Why?"

Mel stood silent, tears running down her face. Agi took another step. "WHY?" he demanded again, fury in his voice.

"Because I told her to."

They all turned to stare at the new arrival. A young man with tousled white hair, a cape draped over one shoulder and an expression of cold arrogance stood in the doorway.

This time, Agi spoke the name with the same blank confusion as the rest of them. "Dumas?" Hasmodai echoed the name in a whisper as his addled brain tried to make sense of this new development.

"Hello, dear sister. And the rest of you. I apologize for any discomfort you may be in," Dumas said. "As none of you happened to bring your memory records with you, we were forced to activate them remotely. It is a much less effective and more extended process. You may suffer some disorientation."

"Dumas," Agi said again. Then, after a struggle for words, blurted out once more, "Why?"

"It's been five years in Earth time, hasn't it? It seems to me that you've had time to reconsider your position, Tina, and return home to Greecia with me. We can take your baggage, if you insist," he added, nodding toward the others.

"Dumas!" Agi snarled.

"One would think you would all have at least welcomed the chance for a little reunion after being confined to mundane lives on this small planet," Dumas said. "Don't all line up to thank me at once."

Dumas was effectively the ruler of the planet Greecia while King Titus was 'indisposed' with his madness, but Agi looked as if he would gladly strangle the king's nephew.

"Dumas—" he said again, forcing out every syllable.

"Yeeees?" Duman interrupted.

"I have a life. We have lives here. We are trying to live them." Agi took a deep breath and clutched at his head as if it ached. "You'd better have a good reason for this. A very good reason."

"Do you think I would set foot on this planet again without a reason? I have a very good reason," Dumas said. "Greecia is dying."


	4. Ch 4 Pollux and Dumas: Tearful Mornings

Chapter 4: Pollux and Dumas: Tearful Mornings

Building the device had been the easy part. Keeping anybody from knowing about it had been nearly impossible. Pollux had watched Castor tinkering with his own project for half an hour before feigning disinterest and boredom, and wandering off to dismantle a portable computer on his own.

"I just want to see what it looks like inside," Pollux told Doctor Mellert when she started asking questions. "I've never had one I was allowed to take apart before."

As he disassembled the machine bit by bit, he laid the parts out neatly on the counter of the lab. All but the parts he needed. Those he secreted in his pocket when Mellert's attention was on Castor.

To Pollux's surprise, Castor became curious, and left his own work to see what Pollux was doing. Caster cast one glance at the arranged parts, and raised an eyebrow at his twin. Pollux felt Castor's curiosity change to surprise, then amusement. Obviously Castor had noticed the missing parts, and had guessed to what use Pollux planned to put them. But he said nothing, and returned to his work. In moments, Castor's mood had changed back to cold concentration.

Pollux also managed to pocket a small soldering iron. That night, as soon as they were put to bed, and their nameless attendant had turned off the light and closed the door, Pollux slipped out of his bed and gathered the items. Working quickly on the floor under the room's night-light, he started assembling his pieces. Castor watched for a few minutes, then rolled over and went to sleep.

It took Pollux less than an hour to build the device, then three hours to code and upload an operating system, using Castor's computer. He then wiped the program from the hard drive, wishing he dared to wipe out Castor's latest research as well.

Pollux crawled to the door, and listened. There was no sound but the hum of the building's electrical system. He held his newly created invention near the door, pressing the tiny battery he had extracted from his watch onto a bare wire.

The electronic lock made chuffing, rattling and clicking noises for a few moments, the keys of the numeric keypad quivering. Then, with a final ka-chunk, all the bolts retracted at once. Pollux gently turned the knob and pulled the door open.

The corridor was dark and deserted. Pollux pressed himself to the wall and moved silently to the next door, barely daring to breathe. He heard the sound of fingers tapping a computer keyboard from inside the room, and moved on until he came to the next door, from which he heard only silence

Activating the decoder opened that lock, as well. Pollux slipped into the empty office and shut the door behind himself. There was no light but the red glow of the Emergency Exit sign, but when he lifted the telephone from its cradle, the keys lit up.

During the day, the Brightwater building hummed with activity, and it had proven impossible to find an unattended telephone at a time when Pollux, himself, had been unattended. Now the building contained only a handful of security guards and a few dedicated workers putting in all-nighters.

Pollux tapped in a series of numbers, then held the receiver tight to his ear, hoping that someone would be willing to answer at two in the morning. He held his breath as he listened to the burring ring of the telephone.

He didn't have long to wait. After two rings, there was a click, and a tinny voice proclaimed, "The number you have reached is not in service. If you feel you have reached this number in error, please hang up and dial again."

Pollux did. And then he did it again. And again. And again.

He finally hung up the phone, biting his lip and trying to hold back tears.

Pollux rummaged in his pocket. The card the examiner had given him was still there, bent and battered from days of being slipped from pocket to pocket. Raising the receiver again, he read the telephone number printed on the white pasteboard by the light of the glowing keys, and punched it in.

This time the phone rang endlessly. Pollux listened to the burring for so long that it startled him when a rattling clunk put an end to it, and a drowsy voice slurred, "Hello?"

Pollux panicked. What could he say? It wasn't even as if he were being mistreated. He was just…miserable. And frightened.

"Hello? Who is this? Do you have any idea what time it is?"

What good would it do to tell this stranger that his parents had given him to Brightwater, and moved away without a goodbye? Or that Doctor Mellert seemed to view them as if they were little more than a very exciting new type of computer? Or that his brother was determined to tinker with strange forces that Pollux felt, KNEW were not safe to disturb?

"Is anybody there?"

Taking a deep breath, Pollux whispered desperately into the phone, "Help me!"

Then he hung up.

* * *

Unlike the Earth, Greecia's axis was nearly perpendicular to its orbital path. This meant that there were no seasons as such. The equator remained cruelly hot, cooling into a wide, temperate region in both the northern and southern hemispheres, capped by an ice-covered pole that never found itself turned toward the sun. The capitol was situated in a warm area of the southern temperate region, and while atmospheric changes sometimes brought a chill to the air, cold was practically unheard of.

Yet now the palace garden was a blackening waste of withered flowers, and in the new sunlight of each dawn, the monument to Princess Tina sparkled with frost. Crops were failing all over the planet, wildlife migrating to the equatorial regions, and plants, unable to relocate, dying in waves. Each day more of Greecia's water was sealed in ice at the poles.

Dumas looked down from the stage at the Earthly forms of the expatriate Greecian scientists. They had transformed his sister's body into a weapon, sent her soul away to this backward world, and through the reckless abuse of their knowledge, had destroyed their own planet. And they had the unbelievable nerve to resent the fact that their cozy little Earth lives had been disrupted.

When he had returned from Earth and surrendered Georca's forces to the king, the palace had been torn in conflict. There were some who proclaimed Dumas to be the heir to the throne, and as many others who decried him as a traitor and criminal, and even intimated that he had murdered Princess Tina in the hope of stealing her crown.

By the time two weeks had passed, though, even Dumas's most power-hungry rivals were happy to drop the environmental crisis firmly in his lap, and he began his rule as Titas's regent.

"An Orsel imbalance?" Agi demanded skeptically. "From ten people traveling through the Zone?"

"Though you may have been Greecia's greatest living scientists," Dumas said, the words heavy with all the sarcasm he could put in them, "there are other fools who don't have the sense to leave the foundations of the universe alone. Scientists studying the Zone report that its Orsel energy has become severely depleted. The Zone seems to be trying to replenish itself by sucking energy from Greecia. At the same time, Earth's Zone is becoming overcharged, and this planet is warming at the same rate as Greecia cools, in spite of the different rates in the passage of time. In other words, in just the last couple of months on Greecia, the climate change has been as extreme as the change in Earth over the last five years. The changes started when your bodies were destroyed, leaving your souls stranded on this planet."

"Earth's climate has been changing for a lot longer than that," Soreto protested. "The atmospheric pollutants and—"

"While I will hardly argue that the people of Earth seem to be destroying their planet as fast as they can, the fact remains that the change accelerated drastically in the last five years," Dumas snapped. "If it weren't for the climate regulators installed around the polar regions to keep them frozen, this island would be under water, along with most of the world's land mass. By the way, I find it interesting that ancient Earth cultures predicted the end of their world in 2012, just when you ended your mission, don't you?"

"When Earth fires a rocket into space, the whole planet has less mass, but that doesn't send Earth flying out of its orbit," Agi said. "Given the entire population of Greecia and Earth, what difference could ten souls make?"

"I don't know. I am a responsible, sane person, not a scientist," Dumas retorted. "The only remedy our scientific advisors have suggested yet is to see that all the Greecians currently stranded on Earth are sent back through the Zone, the same way as they arrived."

He enjoyed the silence that followed, and the stricken faces staring up at him.

As usual, the insufferable Agi was the first to speak. "You believe our deaths will repair the Zone?"

"Aren't you willing to die for your planet?" Dumas asked. "For all the millions of people suffering and dying of your arrogant mistakes?"

After another long pause, Soreto said, "It isn't exactly that anyone is unwilling, I'm sure. There seems to be no choice. But—"

"No choice?" Seth demanded. "There's no choice, all right! It's totally out of the question! There's no way that I will let you slaughter Tina, or anyone else! There has to be another way, and you—"

"Seth," Tina interrupted. "I'm a princess of Greecia. If the people need me, even if they need me to die, I don't have a choice."

"I won't allow it!" Seth shouted.

Soreto said firmly, "But, as I was saying—"

"As little as I like to say it," said Dumas, "nobody is going to die. And I would certainly not sent my sister back to inhabit a body that has been contaminated by your filthy interference. She will not become a weapon again. A new body has been constructed for her, and for each of you. It is waiting on Greecia now for the transfer."

Now each of them stared in shock, and began shouting at the same time. "Yes, yes," Dumas said. "As I said before, don't all thank me at once."

"It isn't possible, Dumas," Agi said flatly, and the others fell silent. "It's been five years in Earth time since you left us here, and it takes twenty-seven Earth years for a single Greecian year to pass. You expect us to believe that in the short time you've had, the ability to reconstruct a body was developed and the job was completed?"

"If you had pulled your noses out of what didn't concern you more often, you would know that the technology existed, in its infant stage, before you ever left Greecia. It's in current use constantly for medical emergencies—replacement limbs and organs are grown as a matter of course, and an entire body is a simple extension of that technology. Georca ordered your replicant bodies created before he ever left for Earth, in case something went wrong with the preservation chambers," Dumas said. "Apparently, he considered you to be of some value. Growth is accelerated, though not so much for an entire body as for a single replacement part. I'm afraid you will have to be eleven years old again. What fun for you."

"Do you mean," Agi asked in a strained, level tone, "that we could have returned to Greecia at any time? Even after you destroyed the preservation chambers?"

"That's what I mean, yes," said Dumas. "Did I neglect to mention that before I left for home? Well, as they say here on Earth: my bad."

"But what I've been trying to say," Soreto burst in before Agi could respond," is that it won't work, anyway. There are no longer ten of us. We lost Palza and Hesma. And we still have no idea where Saron is, or even if he is living now."

"The scientists of Greecia sent some of their new toys with me," said Dumas. "I am told that they should help you to locate any Greecians existing on this planet. As for the two casualties, I will be going in place of one of them. I'm more than ready to shed this stunted Earth body I've been trapped in. We will have to hope that will be enough…if nothing else comes along."

"And did you happen to bring the data on the state of the Zone and the climate changes?" Agi asked.

Dumas pulled a memory crystal from his pocket. "Of course I did," he said. "Believe me, if you can find a way to repair the damage you caused without setting foot on my planet again, I will be more than delighted."

Agi climbed onto the stage and took the crystal. Dumas was completely taken by surprise when Agi's other fist smashed into his jaw. He landed on his back, tried to roll to his feet, slid off the edge of the stage to fall to the floor.

Clutching his jaw and struggling to regain the air that had been knocked out of his lungs, Dumas snarled at the scientist in the Earth boy's body.

"That was just for Hesma," Agi said. "I still may have to hit you again when you get up."


	5. Ch 5: Soreto, Winter, Belle: Beginnings

Chapter 5: Soreto, Winter, Belle: Beginnings

The ship in which Dumas had traveled from Greecia was uncommonly small and functional: as was only reasonable, if he had planned to abandon it and return via the Zone. The equipment was packed tightly and efficiently into the hold, and once the two robots that Dumas called for had been activated, the Greecian scientists stepped back and let them take care of the unloading.

Soreto had absorbed the data Dumas had brought with him, as had the others. Now she continued to study it in detail on a data pad. Having something artificially implanted into your memory was quick and useful, but visual records were far more reliable than memory when every detail needed to be considered. And implanted memories were notoriously unstable, unless you reinforced them with actual study.

The situation did seem dire, and would quickly become catastrophic as the continued cold must send innumerable species of plants and animals into extinction. Nearby, Agi was unpacking and setting up one of the new sensor panels. Soreto could tell by his movements that he had not yet let go of his anger. Or perhaps it was just tension from having another disaster laid at their feet, and another dire mission to accomplish. She sighed. It would have been wonderful to be reunited with her colleagues under less urgent circumstances. Some part of her, even when she was Flo, had missed them.

"We're lucky there's such a time difference between Earth and Greecia," Soreto said. "We will need all the time we can spare just to learn to use the new equipment. Everything seems to have changed since we left."

"With any sort of foresight, Dumas will have brought memory cards for training purposes," Agi said shortly. "There is no time to waste. If we can't solve this crisis quickly, we will be forced to try Dumas's solution. And if that doesn't fix anything, we will find ourselves on Greecia, with no time advantage any more, trying to find a way to repair the damage from there. We need to be thorough, and we need to work quickly."

"Maybe. Let me run this by you," Tarlant said. "Dumas has his big change of heart and returns to Greecia alone. He wonders what he was thinking, and after kicking himself for a month, comes up with this idea to force the princess to return, and finish us off once and for all."

"You think Dumas faked the data?" Seth asked.

"He wouldn't!" Princess Tina objected.

"The information on Greecia's climate seems pretty credible to me," Soreto said. She had recognized several of the names associated with the research, and their writing style was consistent with what she remembered of their earlier work.

"It doesn't matter," Agi said. "We don't have the option of disbelief. If we refuse to cooperate with Dumas, and it turns out he was telling the truth..."

Agi didn't have to finish the sentence. Then they would have doomed Greecia. They were silent.

"But even if he is right," Soreto said, "how can we know that returning through the Zone will repair anything? If we've caused...well...something like a rupture between Earth's zone and Greecia's, might reversing the process just make it worse than ever?"

Agi shook his head as he connected several leads and cables from a control board to the sensor panel array. "Let's just do our best to find a solution right here on Earth so we never need to try it."

"And if we can't fix it here, we go back to Greecia?" Tarlant asked. "If Soreto's right, and that doesn't do any good at all, won't we just be returning to die with rest of the planet?"

"What choice do we have?" Mel demanded. "Either go there and die with the planet, or stay here while it dies, knowing we might have saved Greecia, but were afraid to take the risk?"

"Mel is right. We have no choice," said Agi. "So less talk and more work."

The others returned to their tasks.

"Hey, I kind of feel like a fifth wheel around here," Seth asked. "How can I help?"

That's all right, we know what we're doing," Soreto said.

"Yeah, but-"

Come on, Seth," Tina said, walking toward the beach. "We're only getting underfoot. Let's watch the sunset, it looks like it's going to be a lovely one."

Soreto frowned as she looked toward the western sky. The sun was low in the sky, scattering a pale pink blush over the clouds. It would be dark before they completed assembling the instruments. She didn't want to quit for the night yet, not with the sense of urgency so fresh and strong.

She turned to mention this to Agi. To her surprise he stood still, hands clenched at his sides, in the same place he had been when he last spoke.

"Agi?"

"I promised Ian's mother that I would return," Agi said bitterly. "I promised!"

Soreto bit her lip. Flo's father had nearly been destroyed by the disappearance of his daughter. It had taken him years to throw off his alcoholism and depression. Even now, she sometimes felt as if she were the parent and he had somehow become the child. If Flo were to vanish again, would her father ever recover?

"We'll find a solution on Earth," she said firmly.

"So, do you mean...if we do...we won't be returning to Greecia?"

They all turned to look at Hasmodai. He flushed. "It's just that, well, it IS our home, after all."

Soreto hesitated. It hadn't occurred to her to think beyond the success of their mission. While she, given a choice, would certainly stay on Earth, as she was sure Agi would, she was seized by a sudden longing to return to her planet, and to see the familiar cities and mountains of her childhood. Her first childhood.

Exiled together, the question had never arisen of who would go home and who would stay. If they could leave Earth, how many of them would?

"Dumas is coming," Tarlant said quickly.

"Don't hit him again, Agi," Mel pleaded.

"I won't," Agi said.

"Why not?" Tarlant asked. "That was a really good punch."

"It was childish. We have to work together if..." he stopped as Dumas neared, and returned to his work.

"The Homonculoids can have everything assembled overnight, while you sleep," Dumas said. "I don't know why you're even bothering, unless you like feeling useful."

"I like feeling useful," Agi said.

"Homonculoids? Is that what you call those robots?" Tarlant watched with eager interest as the robots approached bearing more sensor panels. "Are they a new model?"

The robots were smaller and sleeker than the security robots Soreto had seen on Georca's ship. Their arched coppery bodies were carapaced with shiny, translucent white scales, giving the construct something like a crayfish's shape. It moved on eight long, spidery legs, and a host of smaller limbs and attachments unfolded from its underside when needed. It was surmounted by a continually rotating copper-colored sphere with two large black sensor orbs embedded in it. Another orb was fixed in the robot's underside.

"The Homonculoid robots have been in use for several years, now. They are almost completely self-maintained, able to carry out even complicated and delicate tasks, and are extremely durable," Dumas said. "Their only weakness is that their cortical centers tend to burn out every twenty days or so, but since those are inexpensive, replaceable and entirely recyclable, they are extremely practical robots. I left all of Georca's utility robots here to dismantle and destroy what remained of the GED group's autozone, under Mel's direction, and they have been responsible for the building and maintenance of the Rugen Institute since."

"Forty-three! One-ninety-seven!" Dumas called, and the two robots laid down their burdens and approached. "I give you these two Homonculoids to help you with your work. If you'll step forward and speak your names..."

Tarlant was the first, eagerly announcing his name. The two machines made a series of chittering beeps in response. "And this is Wonder," he added, and the robots acknowledged the old dog at his feet.

Soreto stepped forward next. It felt slightly unsettling to stand before the arch of the enormous legs, the orb in each robot's belly reflecting her curved and warped image. But when she announced her name, each orb flashed with a serene blue light, and there was a change in the stance of the Homonculoids that made her feel greeted and welcomed.

Hasmodai was the next to step forward and speak.

"They already know me," Mel said. "Agi?"

Agi was still working on the sensor control panel, but he put down the tool he was using and stepped forward. "Agi," he said. "And Ian." Then he returned to his task.

"Should we call Seth and Tina?" Tarlant asked. "I suppose they can wait until later. Hey!" he called after Dumas, who had turned away. "What are the robots' names?"

"They are Forty-three and One-ninety-seven," said Dumas. "It's marked on their sides. There are over three hundred Homonculoids working at the Institute, there's no point in treating them like individuals." He walked on.

"Well, if I'm going to work with them, they need names," Tarlant said. He pointed to one robot. "You are Bubble!" The machine burbled. "And you are Squeak!" The second robot made a high-pitched beep.

"I think they like the names," Hasmodai said, smiling.

"I'll have to paint them different colors," Tarlant said. "So they are easier to tell apart."

"Later," Agi said. "Now they have work to do. And so do you."

As the robots returned to carting equipment, Tarlant bent back over the circuit board he was assembling. But he had a broad smile across his face, and Soreto couldn't help smiling herself to see it. He was the same old Tarlant. Whatever happened, he could always find some small joy in life to help him survive, as long as he had a dog or robot to love.

As she returned to her own work, she caught sight of Agi, still working on the sensor array, his face tired and grim and strained, and her smile faded.

* * *

Dalvan Winter reached the top of the stairs. He was in the right place. The office door on the left had a blank piece of paper taped over its window, but the light coming from within the room showed the silhouette of the lettering on the glass: N.H. Cooks, Private Investigator. Underneath, in smaller letters, was the unusual notice, Rate reductions for significant weirdness. Winter knocked on the door.

After a moment, the door opened partway, and a stocky man with a bristling black moustache glared out through the gap. "We're closed," he said. "I've retired."

"Er…Alice Holingworth sent me. She said that—"

"Oh, yeah. Alice called me." Cooks stepped aside, opening the door further to let Winter in. "All right, I'll listen to your case, just as a favor for an old friend. But I don't make any promises. Have a seat, I'll go make us some coffee."

Cooks stepped into the adjoining room, and Winter looked for a place to sit. The room contained a desk, the chair behind it, a small couch and a coffee table. Every flat surface but the chair was cluttered with file folders, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks and other rubble. Winter remained standing.

On the wall hung a plaque, engraved with best wishes on his retirement from the National Law Enforcement Agency. It was dated three years ago. Framed nearby was his private detective's license, a group photo of Cooks among some police officers, and strangely, an aged sepia photo of several pale-haired children.

With a shrug. Winter removed a stack of newspapers from the couch and sat down, putting them on the table. The top paper had an article marked in red, about a school event in Nohedge. A photo showed the image of a pretty blond girl working at an educational display about coral reef destruction. The paper was dated over a year ago. Curious, he lifted it and looked at the paper underneath. The headline was:West Silies Resident Wins National Robot Demolition Derby. A scruffy boy stood proudly by a machine that looked as if it had been constructed from discarded appliances, his father beside him and a dog at his feet. The paper was dated four years ago.

Cooks entered with two cups of coffee, and Winter put the newspapers down hastily. Cooks made his way behind the desk and dropped into the chair. Winter noticed that he did not look very well.

But then, Winter thought as he took a sip, it might be the coffee that was killing him. He managed to swallow the bitter mouthful, thinking that it would probably be rude to spit it out into the pot of the dying houseplant in the corner, however much it appeared to need watering.

"So, tell me about this case of yours," Cooks said.

Winter almost took another sip of coffee, then found a space to put the cup on the table. "Have you ever heard of the Weaver twins?"

"The Brightwater whiz kids." Cooks nodded. "Sure, Castor and Pollux. Born in St. Remi. They contributed to the design of the climate regulation machines, and Brightwater has about fifty or more patents on their other inventions. They're, what, almost five years old, now?"

Winter was impressed.

Something must have showed in his face, because Cooks waved a hand deprecatingly. "It's just a hobby of mine. I take an interest in…unusual children. Anyway, why do you ask?"

"I work for the National Department of Education," Winter said. "Recently, the twins' parents turned over custody of the boys to Brightwater Industries, apparently as part of a financial arrangement. When Brightwater obtained passports for them, and it was learned that the twins were being taken to one of Brightwater's maintenance and research stations in Antarctica, various people in Social Services became concerned. They blocked the Weavers' exit from the country by invoking the national child protection laws, those pertaining to education in particular. So Brightwater applied to have the boys take a high school equivalency test at once. I was sent to administer the test."

"And how did they do?"

"They passed flawlessly." Cooks nodded, unsurprised.

Winter went on, "So, two four-year-old boys are officially high school graduates, and last night Brightwater took them quietly out of the country before any other legal interference could be brought to bear. But…well…when I gave them the test, I just got the feeling something was wrong. Castor was hostile, cold as a stone. And Pollux seemed…well, terrified is the only word. Desperate and out of his depth and trying not to show it."

Cooks grunted. "And what can you tell me about the rest of the situation? What was your impression of Brightwater?"

"Well," Winters said hesitantly. "The whole place was very high-security. Guards escorted me in and out, and guarded the door while the boys were being tested. It certainly didn't feel like a good situation for children to be kept in. Doctor Mellert, who seems to be their primary caregiver, seems…er…I wouldn't go so far as to say uncaring, but perhaps emotionally unengaged. And her assistant is Kahale Baldwin. I don't know any details, but he worked for Social Services himself at one time, and left under a cloud several years ago."

"So," Cooks said. "The twins have already left the country, they're more or less under the legal authority of Brightwater, and they're being kept under guard. I'll admit, the situation sounds less than ideal, but as far as I can see, none of it's a crime."

"That's why I came to a private investigator and not the police," Winter said. "Before I left the Brightwater building, I gave my card to Pollux and asked him to call me if he needed to talk to someone. Two nights ago, around two in the morning, I got a telephone call. Nobody spoke for some time, and then a child's voice said, 'Help me,' and the phone went dead."

Cooks sat and stared at his coffee. "Could have been a prank call," he finally growled.

"Mr. Cooks, I am getting old, I have a job and a family," Winters said earnestly. "It may be cowardly, but I simply can't do anything about checking out this situation myself. Except to hire you. I haven't got much money, but if you tell me what it would cost to get you to look into this matter further, I promise you, I will find a way to pay you somehow."

Cooks sighed and leaned back in his chair. He picked up a magazine and tossed it to Winter. "What do you make of that?"

Winter picked up the magazine and stared in disbelief. On the cover were the Weaver twins. Castor looked less angry, Pollux less frightened, but it was them. The magazine was a children's monthly, and Winter flipped through the pages to an interview with the twins.

The interview was short and simple, as it must be for its young readers. It was just a few questions about how they had discovered their love of science, and what it was like being a twin. The answers were upbeat, cute and funny. The interview ended with:

Q: How do you like being a genius?

Castor: It's great!

Pollux: It's fun! (laughs)

Under the interview were personal profiles. They claimed that Pollux enjoyed swimming and roller skating, and that he loved Pokémon. Castor, apparently, was fond of radio-controlled airplanes, surfing, and chocolate.

"These aren't them," Winter said flatly.

"Those aren't the same boys you met?"

"No." Winter shook his head. "I mean, the picture looks like them, but this interview…it's not them!"

"You wouldn't think," Cooks remarked, " that developing most of Brightwater's most lucrative patents for the last year would leave much time for surfing and watching Pokémon, would you? Have you read the last paragraph?"

Winter looked at the magazine again and read: Castor and Pollux Weaver will be appearing in animated form in August as the stars of the first of a series of educational adventure video games, Quest for the Last Dinosaur. Brightwater Industries is also in negotiations with ActionStar Studios of Japan over a future animated series and manga series featuring the twins.

"Not that there's any crime in squeezing the last bit of profit out of your cash cows," Cooks said, getting up. "I doubt the Weaver kids will even know it's happening." He stretched and wandered over to stand in front of the old sepia photograph, gazing at the strange children in it silently.

"All right," Cooks finally said. "I'll take your case. What the heck, maybe everyone ought to see Antarctica before they die."

"Thank you so much." Winter stood. "If you let me know how much—"

"I'll send you a bill," said Cooks.

"Thank you," Winters said again. "Oh, and..er…on your door. About the rate reduction for significant weirdness?"

Cooks smiled. "Let's wait and see how weird it gets."

* * *

Belle was more than bored, she was annoyed. It was late, and below the hill where she sat in darkness, Ian continued to work under floodlights. Belle pulled out her cell phone again, but there was still no reception, which was completely ridiculous on an island so covered with technology.

She had tried to talk to Ian a few times, but he blinked in surprise, as if he had forgotten her existence, and had distractedly suggested she take a walk around the island, as if that wasn't what she had been doing the whole time. There wasn't much to see, since Kuril Island was small and most of it was covered by concrete slabs and the buildings of the Rugen Institute.

Wishing she hadn't come, Belle shoved her cell phone back into her purse. She had thought it would be a fun trip, and a chance to spend time with her big brother. She had never imagined that Ian would DUMP her this way and be all caught up with new friends and obsessed with some stupid science project.

They were all absorbed in their work, as if it was important or something, and Belle had nobody to talk to. Even the dog had abandoned her the moment it had caught sight of its master. To add to her sense of isolation, Ian and his friends had all started calling each other by ridiculous code names! Even more ridiculous, Doctor Hawksbee seemed to be a part of it. The first time Ian had called out asking 'Mel' to bring something, Belle had thought he was talking to her, and felt like an idiot when Doctor Hawksbee fetched a tool while Belle was still asking what the heck a resonance meter was.

And if there was one thing that was creepy, it was adults trying to act as if they were kids again. Gherta Hawksbee must be about sixty, and there she was, calling everyone by silly nicknames, wearing a weird black costume with kneepads and boots, and, Belle swore, swinging a sword around at one point! Belle even overheard the old woman talking to the other kids about an enema, and not ONE of them so much as rolled their eyes. What was WRONG with them?

Belle had hung around them all for a while hoping to be included in the game, but found herself completely ignored until that Flo asked her to please move because she was standing where one of those stupid robot-like machines was trying to walk.

Now she glared down at Flo, working beside her big brother. The girl seemed reasonably nice, in a dull, serious kind of way, if you didn't care that her clothes weren't anything like what was in fashion. But she was not what Belle would want in a big sister. And no way was she good enough for Ian. Belle supposed Ian would have a girlfriend eventually, but it had to be someone EXTRA special. He wasn't just a gorfy science geek, like the rest of them. He was sweet and strong and handsome and great at sports, and was chosen as president of his class at school every year. It annoyed her how much time Flo seemed to be spending working next to Ian. She was TOTALLY flirting with him, Belle was certain.

Belle checked her cell phone again and sighed. It wouldn't be so bad if there were at least some hot boys to look at. She supposed Captain Thoma was good-looking, but he acted so totally enthusiastic about everything, like a little kid. It was SO not cool. And anyway, he was obviously hung up on that bland, pasty-faced Helga girl. Besides, she had heard a couple of the others calling him 'Lord Seth' so 'Captain Thoma' apparently had a thing about titles, even in his code name.

Even Helga had a code name, if you could call it that. Tina. What kind of a code name was Tina? It only put a cap on the total boringness of this girl. Though Belle supposed that if she had been stuck with a name like Helga, she'd rather be called by something normal for a change, too. Helga. Hell-gaaaaah.

Teo was kind of cute, Belle supposed, in a vague, dreamy, too-sweet kind of way. Not her type, though a few of her friends could probably fall for him, especially if he had been a poet or singer or something, instead of a science nut.

As for Kalie, he was a total loss. From his cut-it-myself hair to his gorfy grin to his Mecha Warrior tee shirt to his dirty store-brand sneakers with the holes worn over the little toes, he might just as well stand in Clairmont Square screaming I'M PROUD TO BE A GEEK!

Just as Belle was about to check her cell AGAIN, she noticed someone else.

Standing in the doorway of the nearest building, leaning slouched against the doorframe, was a boy in a gorgeously tailored tan suit with a black shirt and no tie. His artfully tousled hair was the same silvery white Ian's had been when he was young, his face was angelically beautiful, and he watched the others at work with an expression of boredom and sardonic contempt.

Wow, Belle thought. This trip might be some fun after all.


	6. Ch6 Tarlant Baldwin Dumas: Wheels within

Chapter 6: Tarlant, Baldwin, Dumas: Wheels Within Wheels

"Tarlant? TARLANT!"

Tarlant snapped awake guiltily at Agi's shout. Not that he had much to feel guilty about. He was a mechanical engineer, and now that all the equipment had been assembled, and research was the goal, he was mainly useful as an assistant or when repairs or adjustments were necessary.

He hurried toward the sound of the shout, readying his apology, but it was not necessary. Agi was staring in consternation at Squeak. The robot was aligning one of the enormous sensor panels—if they had had time to construct the facility properly, they would have been automatically adjustable—but was issuing a high-pitched alarm tone, and red lights were flashing all over its body.

"What's wrong with it?" Agi demanded.

"Beats me, I haven't had a chance to take one apart and see what makes it tick yet." Tarlant could have pointed out that it was Agi who had said that would be a waste of valuable time, but instead he pulled the voicelink from his pocket and said "Link Dumas,"

After a moment, a voice issued from the device. "Dumas here."

"Dumas, we've got a robot issue," Tarlant said. "Can you hear the alarm? We have red lights flashing, too."

"Sounds like brain fry."

"What?"

"The cortical center is about to burn out," Dumas said. "Do yourself a favor, have the robot move to an open area and take a storage position. You'll find it easier to access the cortex. I'll bring you a replacement core when I come down there."

Tarlant ordered the robot aside, and Squeak settled down on a concrete landing pad, legs pulled in underneath. Behind him, Tarlant heard Agi irritably order Bubble to change the array's angle to 2077.643 mark 4. A second alarm began to sound.

"Dumas? Bring two," Tarlant said. Secretly delighted at the opportunity, Tarlant began unfastening the clamps that affixed Squeak's carapace to the frame. Since the carapaces had to come off anyway, Agi could hardly object if Tarlant took ten minutes to paint them. Squeak would be rust red, he had decided, with yellow spots. Bubble would be sea green with blue spots.

Under the hood, the works of the robot were a little disappointing. While some of the parts had been improved and refined since his time on Greecia, there was nothing strange or revolutionary or mysterious under the hood. Except for the cortical center. That was a thick, wheel-shaped object with a hole in the center, energy circuits running to it from every direction. The grooves that radiated from the hole in the center glowed with pale light. Tarlant could smell something hot and acrid, and flashes of electricity skittered across the surface of the core. Even as he watched, a flash of blue flame enveloped it entirely, and all the light went out. Beneath him, Tarlant felt the life go out of the robot.

As he moved to take Bubble's carapace off, Tarlant could hear Agi fuming about the delay.

"It can't be helped," Soreto said. "Why don't you get some sleep in the meantime? I don't think you've slept more than an hour at a time in the last two weeks. If you get overtired, you'll start to make mistakes we can't afford."

"All right," Agi caved in. "But just two hours."

He set his chronometer and lay down on the concrete, using a folded canvas tarpaulin as a pillow.

"It would only take three minutes to go inside and find a bed," Soreto said. "Agi?" But Agi was already dead to the world. Soreto sighed, bent down, and removed Agi's chronometer.

"He's going to kill you," Tarlant predicted.

"He needs to sleep," she said. "If I thought we could haul him into the Institute without waking him up…" She went back to her work, and Tarlant hauled the two carapaces over to lean them against the wall. The paint had been ready and waiting for days, and Tarlant, free of Agi's constant pressure, took his time to do a neat job.

What Agi didn't seem to understand, Tarlant thought, was that not everybody could stand the kind of pace Agi set. Yes, two worlds were in the process of being destroyed. And yes, it was most likely their fault and their responsibility. But how would it help to make themselves miserable all the time? That was Palza's mistake, in Tarlant's opinion. He smothered himself in his guilt until it broke him, until he could no longer bear the burden.

After Palza's departure, Tarlant had worried about Hasmodai going the same way. Hasmodai had always been deeply emotional, and was never the adventurous type. Over the years Tarlant had watched his friend become more and more melancholy. The desperately depressing literature Hasmodai began to steep himself in more and more struck Tarlant as a bad sign, but Hasmodai actually seemed to find some sort of emotional strength in his gloomy readings. Through him Tarlant had been introduced to the works of Faulkner, Zola, Hardy and Dostoevsky.

Tarlant hadn't wanted to be introduced.

"Hey," he called to Hasmodai. Gesturing at Agi, he said, "The cat's away. How are you doing? We probably have time for a quick dip in the ocean."

"I'm fine," Hasmodai said. "I'm getting some really interesting readings right now. But if you want to take a break, go ahead."

Hasmodai did seem fine. In fact, he appeared more light-hearted than Tarlant had seen him look since Greecia. He was back in his element—doing research. This was the kind of adventure Hasmodai loved. In a laboratory he could explore and discover and face challenges and bear responsibility. The years of running, hiding, searching and fighting had been horribly against his nature. Here, in a way, he was home again.

"Wonder!" Tarlant called. The snoozing dog lurched to her feet and trotted after him as Tarlant ran down the sandy beach, pulling off his shirt. It seemed a bit like cheating to loaf when Agi was asleep and couldn't protest, but Tarlant worked best when he could take a little time off for some fun and relaxation now and then.

Eventually Tarlant saw Dumas exit one of the buildings. He threw a stick of driftwood for Wonder to chase one last time and returned to the lab site, dressing on the way.

"Been enjoying yourself?" Dumas asked pleasantly. Dumas was even better than Agi at twisting the knife of guilt. The difference was, Tarlant respected Agi. Dumas's disapproval didn't bother him much.

"I needed something to wake me up," Tarlant said. "Did you bring the cortical centers?"

Dumas slid a canvas pouch off his shoulder and handed it to Tarlant. It was heavy. Inside were two round black wheels similar to those which Tarlant had watched burn out in the robots. He examined them with interest.

"What are they made of? How do they work?" he asked.

"Some kind of carbon matrix. And I haven't the slightest idea."

Tarlant popped the burned-out cores, now cool, from Bubble and Squeak. The burning had left them warped and misshapen, the smooth grooves along the top twisted. As soon as each new core was put in place, the robot hummed to life. As the machines reactivated their backup memories, Tarlant put the newly painted carapaces in place.

Bubble and Squeak arose from the dead, and after an interested examination of each other's new color scheme, returned to adjusting Agi's sensor panel.

"That's really inefficient," said Tarlant. "What if one of those burnt out in an emergency, or in the middle of carrying something heavy? Or somewhere you had no spare core? How would you ever get the robot home?"

"Amazing. You really are the robotics expert. Nobody else seems to have ever thought of that before. You should send a message to the manufacturer."

Sometimes, lately, Dumas would have entire conversations where he did not say anything snide or sarcastic or accusing or hurtful or insulting. This was apparently not one of those times. Tarlent snorted. "Do you have a spare core I could study? Maybe I if could figure out how it works, I can design one that lasts longer." Seeing the expression on Dumas's face, he hastily added, "It might speed up our work."

"Ian? Hey, Big Brother! You shouldn't be sleeping on the concrete like that."

Belle had come with Dumas. Tarlant opened his mouth to tell the girl to let her brother sleep, but it was too late. Agi was already sitting up, rubbing his eyes, and groping for his missing chronometer.

"So, what sort of progress have you been making on your research?" Dumas asked. He casually put an arm around Belle's shoulders as she came to stand beside him, looking up admiringly, with both arms around his waist.

Tarlant saw a muscle twitch in her brother's face, but Agi simply said, "Hasmodai? Dumas would like a progress report."

"Excellent! We've been collecting some really fascinating data!" Hasmodai reported. He went into a detailed and technical description that Agi and Soreto listened to with interest, but which left Tarlant just slightly fogged. Belle listened to a sentence or two with an obvious complete lack of comprehension or interest, then closed her eyes and concentrated on leaning her cheek against Dumas's shoulder.

Dumas was wearing sunglasses today, and his expression was unreadable. "Enough," he finally said with a sharp gesture. "Summarize. And use small words."

"Oh. Well, in short, the rate of Orsel packet proliferance and attrition in the—"

"SMALL words. And explain them."

Hasmodai looked confused. He tried again, speaking slowly. "Well, to begin with, the Zones are alternate dimensions, parallel universes filled with Orsel energy—named after the scientist who first detected it- rather than matter. This energy is concentrated in stable packets, or souls. Each world has its own corresponding Zone. It seems that these souls do not actually leave their Zone when they inhabit a physical body, but project a part of their energy into the material universe. Ordinarily, at least as far as our studies have determined, there is little change in the population of souls in the Zone. The Enma is a force that maintains the Zone's integrity by stabilizing or, if necessary, eliminating souls that have become unstable, either from forces in the zone, or from occurrences in the material world."

"Such as arrogant, overeducated fools sending souls off to the wrong world."

"Such as," Hasmodai admitted. "For some reason, the populations of the Zones of both Earth and Greecia are now in flux. Souls are vanishing from Greecia's zone at a disturbing rate. The interesting thing is that new souls are also appearing in both zones."

"Both zones?" Dumas frowned. "Are you sure about that?"

"Oh, yes," Hasmodai said. "In fact, the rate of increase seems to be higher in Greecia's Zone than in Earth's. However, it doesn't approach the rate at which souls are being lost, and they are only vanishing from Greecia's Zone. The rate at which souls are appearing—either newly created or returning, we don't know-in both zones combined is roughly similar to the rate at which Greecia is losing souls. But there may be no real connection, since the patterns of gain are over a chaotic and apparently random spread of time, while the disappearing souls leave the zone in large bursts at regular intervals."

Dumas silently stared at Hasmodai through his dark glasses.

"Like popcorn," Tarlant offered. "It comes out of the bucket in big scoops, but the kernels pop one at a time."

"Exactly!" said Hasmodai.

Dumas turned the blank stare on him, and Tarlant remembered too late that Greecia did not have popcorn.

"Let's reduce this to essentials," said Dumas. "Do you have any theory on what is causing this…popcorn effect? And how do you intend to stop it?"

"Er," said Hasmodai, looking to Agi and Soreto for help.

"We need to do more research," Agi said. "We've barely had time to start collecting data."

"And already, we've learned so much more about the Zones and how they—"

Dumas interrupted Soreto. "One more week. Then we do things my way."

He turned and left, his arm still around Belle. Agi glowered after him.

A week," he said in disgust. "A week is nothing. It could take us years to gather the data we need and find a solution. Does anyone have any ideas, theories, wild guesses?"

Nobody did.

"But, well, we are learning a lot more about the Zones, at least," Hasmodai said.

"I'm going to have to talk to Belle about Dumas," Agi growled. "It's bad enough that I may be leaving again, I don't want her heart broken when Dumas goes, too. He isn't worth the pain."

"I don't think you have to worry about Belle," Soreto said drily. Though Belle seemed to have little respect for or interest in anyone but Dumas and Agi, the loathing that brat felt for Soreto had been obvious and growing. It seemed from her tone that Soreto's tolerance was wearing thin.

"Anyway, Belle's fourteen years old," Hasmodai said. "You can't control who someone falls in love with. She's got a right to make her own choices."

"She's my SISTER!" Agi snarled. "It's my job to look after her. And to see she doesn't associate with undesirables. I CAN interfere, and I will."

Furiously, Agi punched a few buttons on the control board, stared at the monitor, squinted, rubbed his eyes, and stared again.

"All right," he sighed. "I'm going in to catch up on my sleep. Who's got my chrono?"

"Soreto," Agi said reproachfully when she handed the chronometer over. Tarlant watched with Soreto and Hasmodai as Agi walked back into the Institute, shoulders sagging in exhaustion and defeat.

"He's overtired and overreacting," Soreto said. "It's obvious Belle is just feeling left out and looking for attention. Agi's attention. You notice she's only all over Dumas that way when Big Brother's watching."

"I thought Annoying Girl was supposed to go home," Tarlant said. "Doesn't she have school?"

"Dumas fixed it," Soreto said. "Apparently he went to Sanceli Island and told Belle's mother she was being considered for a future scholarship as well, and would be joining our project."

Tarlant could imagine how much Agi had liked finding out that Dumas had been to his home, and had been alone with his mother.

"He seems to be going to a lot of trouble for Belle," Hasmodai said.

"It's just another way to torture Agi," said Soreto. "Hasmodai, could you send your latest observations to the Institute network? I want Mel to have a look at it all."

She left as Hasmodai arranged the upload. When he was done, Hasmodai pulled a voicelink from his pocket and plugged it into a socket on the control board, typing in a few quick lines of code and executing them. From the voicelink came the soft buzzing sound of a distant phone ringing, then a click, and an indistinct female voice.

"Hello, Serena, it's Teo," Hasmodai said. "No, I'm fine. Listen, about Rogan, I really don't think he's—what? Promoted to section chief? Well, that's…yes. Yes. Congratulate him for me. Um, no, it was nothing. Listen, Serena…I may be even longer than I told you. The project they're working on here is really fascinating. In fact…in fact…I may be staying on permanently. I know. Yes, it is, Thank you. Love you."

He punched a button. The link went silent, but Hasmodai remained leaning on the control board, his head hanging. Then he noticed Tarlant's stare, and flushed.

"I didn't know you could do that," Tarlant said. "Call out, I mean."

"Oh…yes. It's not that hard to adjust the wave transmitter to patch into a satellite," Hasmodai said. "Would you like to call home, Tarlant?"

Tarlant considered. He had left his home at the age of five to search for the missing princess Tina. Six years later, he had returned to find his room had been kept exactly as he had left it.

"Nah," he said. "They know I'll be okay."

* * *

Kahale Baldwin frowned at the man on the other side of the desk. "You must understand, Mr. Cooks, that this is a high-security facility. Sei Station is more than an Antarctic research site, it is the control center for the entire southern climate regulation system. Any attack or terrorist action here could compromise the security and safety of the entire planet. Ordinarily, we require at least six months training and service before we would consider stationing new security personnel here, but…"

"But nobody wants to go to Antarctica," Cooks said.

And that was it in a nutshell. Very few of the regular, reliable Brightwater security team were willing to stay on this manmade ice island for six months at a time, cut off by company policy from all outside communication. Cooks had been hired only a week ago. Though he was older than the usual new hire, his background check was flawless, and he had a splendid service record in law enforcement. No family but an estranged ex-wife, no children, no connections: he was the perfect man for the job.

"Why did you retire early from the Department of Law Enforcement?" Baldwin asked.

"My last case went bad," Cooks said. "I was on the track of a gang of runaway kids. Six years I spent tracking them down, with the department breathing down my neck, and just when I am on the verge of nabbing them, what happens? They wander home on their own, and I get no credit at all."

"Children can be unpredictable," Baldwin said with a tight-lipped smile.

"Yeah, so anyway, I got fed up and decided to go into business for myself, where I could pick and choose my cases. But it didn't really work out. And since I didn't want to go back to the force, security work seemed the way to go."

Baldwin nodded. "Very well. Mr. Cooks, welcome to Brightwater and Sei Station. Your duties will vary between making routine security flyovers of the regulator chain, and providing security for the station and its personnel, including," his smile twisted sourly, " the celebrated Weaver twins. You are under the command of Captain Walfang at all times, and Doctor Mellert and myself may also give you orders. If emergency assistance of any sort is required, you may render aid to the other station personnel. Apart from that, they have no authority over you. Do not let them distract you from your duties, and do not interact with them unnecessarily. Especially the twins. There is a lounge you may use in your off-duty hours, but there is no communication permitted with the outside world for security reasons. Is that understood?"

"Absolutely."

Baldwin was pleased. Most of their new hires were young men full of gripes and questions and 'But—"s. Cooks would go far at Brightwater.

"Then I leave you to Captain Walfang," Baldwin said. He rose and let Cooks out into the corridor where the security chief waited, and put on his parka to walk to the hangar.

Most of the rooms intended for personnel at Sei Station were small and claustrophobic, well insulated to retain heat. Even though the entire station was heated and powered by the heat energy that the climate regulators pulled from air and sea, there were limits to how well their heaters could battle the Antarctic winds. The hangar was too big to keep reliably heated. Cold oozed constantly from the out-facing wall, the roll-down door sheathed with ice wherever the heating wires had not been installed, or were no longer functioning. The enormous room was nearly vacant. Castor Weaver, not even looking up to acknowledge Baldwin's entrance, was kneeling and concentrating intently, unwinding a roll of black electrical tape and sticking it to the floor. Until he was closer, Baldwin didn't realize that he was marking out a complex circular pattern, similar to the ones he had been sketching out constantly for weeks now. Pollux sat on a crate nearby, his back to his brother, playing a hand-held video game.

Baldwin's jaw clenched in frustration. If Doctor Mellert wasn't there, he'd order Castor to clean up the pointless mess he was making, and he'd put Pollux to some practical use. Mellert didn't understand that children needed discipline above all. Many people shared her sentimental idea of children as fragile beings who needed to be pampered and coddled. His former career had been destroyed by softhearted fools. They had called his methods 'excessive' even 'abusive.' But Baldwin's own children were grown and successful—one a military officer, and the other the warden of the large prison on the Western Mainland—and Baldwin knew that the discipline with which he had raised them had done them nothing but good.

"Don't you have something more useful to do?" he couldn't resist saying as he walked past Pollux.

"No," the boy answered.

"Baldwin, come look at this," Doctor Mellert called. On the shelf before her lay a flat, round object. With another twinge of annoyance, Baldwin realized it was Castor's pattern again, concentric circles and a pentagram combined with a mandala, layers of patterns overlaying each other, lines intertwining like the web of a dreamcatcher, strange symbols rising from random points. The child must have wasted days welding the wires together.

With a smile, Mellert held a light bulb above the wire pattern. It lit. Baldwin gasped. When Mellert pulled her hand away, the bulb remained hovering where it was.

"What is it?" Baldwin asked.

"It's Castor's latest invention," she said. "What have I always told you? You need to give creative people complete freedom if you want their best results. Castor's marking out a layout for a full-scale model. It will make a much more exciting demonstration for the stockholders."

Baldwin continued to stare at the floating bulb. "We're going to be rich," he said.

"Think bigger, Baldwin," said Mellert. "Free, unlimited, clean energy for everybody. An end to greenhouse gases. No more nuclear waste. Quite possibly the cure for hunger and poverty. We may be looking at the end of the world as we know it."

Baldwin looked at Castor Weaver for the first time without dislike. On the other hand, Pollux still sat with his back turned, and the faint sounds of game music echoed through the hangar.

"I don't know why you bother keeping the other," Baldwin said. "Pollux hasn't invented so much as a whistle all the time he's been here. I don't care what his test scores are."

"He does seem afraid of his own potential, unfortunately," said Mellert. "But he's still indispensable. Pollux is the mirror to Castor's soul. When Castor is miserable, Pollux looks sympathetic. When Castor is up to mischief, Pollux looks guilty. When Castor is inventing something brilliant, poor Pollux has panic attacks. I wouldn't be able to read that boy at all without Pollux. Besides, Castor would completely go to pieces without his brother."

"I doubt that," said Baldwin. "That boy is as hard and cold as anyone I've met."

"Diamonds are hard, but they shatter when you hit them with a hammer," said Mellert. "You really don't understand children at all, do you, Baldwin? No wonder your last job was such a bad fit."

As Mellert walked away, her words triggered a realization in Baldwin's brain. That was why he loathed Castor so much. The constant, apparently pointless doodling, the way he behaved as if Baldwin barely existed, even the expression of his eyes—it reminded Baldwin of that other child, the one who had been largely responsible for ending his career with the Social Services department.

For the first time ever, Kahale Baldwin wondered if Helga's drawings had held any meaning.

* * *

They were wasting time.

A good deal of Dumas's anger had faded at seeing how hard Agi's team was working to solve the problem they had created. But he kept jabbing at them, the way you had to keep jabbing at a stubborn beast of burden, to keep it moving and on the right path.

Because they were scientists first, after all, and human beings second. With the improved technology and monitoring equipment he had brought, they were in danger of getting caught up in the excitement of new discovery and knowledge, and forgetting they had a goal. It wasn't their fault, they were born that way. It was that scientific tunnel vision of theirs. Sit a child in a room full of toys and tell them to write an essay, and you simply had to stand over them to see that it got done.

But they were wasting time. There was no mystery to investigate. They had opened the Zones and sent ten souls out of Greecia. The destruction of the bodies of Tina, Soran and Lord Seth had not been enough to upset the balance seriously, perhaps, but the loss of energy in Greecia's zone had certainly gone critical at the time the scientists' Greecian bodies had been destroyed, severing their tie with their home world. Like beans on a delicately balanced board, take ten from one end and put it on the other, and all the beans on the board would slide after them. His only hope was that putting them back could still reverse the damage.

They were in denial, of course. They had enough on their consciences without accepting blame for the destruction of Greecia. Still, why were they so resistant to his plan? Not all of them could want to stay on this paltry planet with its primitives and squalor. They must know that the sooner their souls were returned to their own planet, the sooner the crisis would end. Despite the difference in the passage of time between their planets, they must know that every hour that passed on Greecia might mean another extinction or death.

Was it the fear of death itself that kept them from returning? They had no reason to trust his claim that new bodies awaited them on Greecia. He was the one who had destroyed the old ones...meaning that he, Dumas, had set the current catastrophe in motion and shared the guilt and the responsibility. It had been done in the spirit of vengeance, and it had been a foolish and wasteful gesture, as heedless of consequence as the scientists' own abominations. They also blamed him for the death of their colleague Hesma, which had been another waste. However often Dumas told himself that it was Hesma's own desperate desire to return to Greecia that had doomed him, it was just that desire that would have been useful to Dumas now. It would have given him an ally willing to take any risk to bring the lost souls home to Greecia.

In any case, they must be brought to see reason soon. Ten souls had departed via the Autozone, and ten must return. Agi, Soreto, Mel, Tarlant, Hasmodia, Seth and Tina were here. Soran would be found.

Counting himself, that made nine.

"Damien?" Belle broke the silence with the name he had told her was his 'real' one. "What was all that stuff about dimensions and souls and enemas? They're not serious, are they? I mean, if they really knew where a parallel dimension of souls was, it would be huge. They wouldn't get a bunch of kids in to investigate it, would they?"

Dumas turned his most charming smile on the girl. "It's all just a game, my dear. Just a silly, stupid game. Tell me, have you ever been to the royal palace? How would you like to meet my friend, the prince?"


	7. Ch7 Seth Soreto Hasmodai: Surrender

Chapter 7: Seth Soreto Hasmodai: Surrender

Lord Seth stood on a tall rock and stared out to sea. Over the water he could see Ketplaque Island, near enough that the little white squares of houses were visible among the dark green foliage. Some of the researchers working at the Rugen Institute lived there, at least during the week. There were no other islands in sight. The GED group had originally chosen Kuril and Ketplaque for the privacy their isolation would give.

But Seth knew that over the waves and out of sight, there was a tiny, lonely island with a 200-year-old shrine on it. In it, a man and a woman waited for their son to return and take over running the shrine.

Their son would return soon. Thoma's unmarked, dead body would be delivered to his family, the victim of a tragic boating accident which would also have claimed the lives of the respected Doctor Gherta Hawksbee, and the mysterious Damien, wealthy benefactor of the Rugen Institute and influential friend of the royal family, along with a group of bright and promising young scholarship students. This time there would be no agonizing suspense, terror or mystery. The families of the lost children would grieve, bury their dead, and go on with their lives.

Seth leaped from the rock to a higher peak, and from there to a tall tree. Thoma's body was in peak condition, his reflexes well schooled from years of martial arts training, and the Greecian military-issue bodysuit gave him even more speed and let him make the most amazing jumps. Even without activating the energy pack for true anti-gravity, Seth could circle the island without ever touching the ground. Since the Enma had still not appeared, making a game of his patrols was the only thing that kept the boredom and frustration at bay.

After several more leaps, Seth saw Tina standing below on the beach, looking out to sea as usual. He resisted the temptation to join her. He had already argued himself blue in the face without making so much as a dent in her resolve to submit to Damien's plan.

When Tina had refused to listen to him, Seth had turned his rage on Agi—there was still a chance to fix the Zones! They were giving up too easily! They had spent three weeks studying, true, but what was that in Greecian time? One single, solitary, lousy day! What harm could happen in another Grecian day, or two, or even a week? But Agi had stood expressionless, shoulders slumped and eyes cast downward and let Seth's tirade wash over him.

They were whipped, Seth thought. That was the real problem. They had spent five hundred years hunting for Tina, and now the prospect of another long, desperate task and cruel burden was enough to break them. And Dumas had been pressuring them constantly. How could that jerk expect them to get results when he wouldn't leave them alone to do it?

But it was Tina's capitulation that made Seth angriest of all. The Tina he had known on Greecia was not the type to cave in so easily. The Tina he had known would have gone out looking for Saron, not waiting for him like some damsel in distress from a fairy tale. He wondered if that inertia and apathy was something that came from Helga, some physical or genetic problem that weighed her down. Or whether it came from Tina herself, and whether her sufferings on Greecia had permanently wounded her soul. If so, he was responsible for some of that, perhaps the greater part.

At least Helga, a ward of the state, had no family to leave behind in sorrow. And if she felt it was necessary to travel to Greecia via the land of Death…well, Seth had accompanied her down that road once before, and would be there for her again.

And this time, Soran would be with them.

Seth moved on along his patrol route. Finally he leaped to the rooftop of one of the Rugen buildings, and from building to building until he reached the balcony of the main dome. He looked down over the railing. Below was the landing pad where Agi's people had set up their makeshift laboratory. Agi was there, operating one of the sensor stations in a dispirited way. Tarlant sat off to one side, not even pretending to be busy any more, petting that manky old dog of his. That dog, which would be delivered to his parents along with the news of their son's death.

Hasmodai still worked feverishly at his station, the only one who seemed to cling to any shred of hope. Good for him. Even so, he had given instructions that Teo's body was to be mangled in the explosion that sank the Star Princess. He wanted his sister to believe he had died instantly, without fear or suffering.

It had seriously disturbed Seth to know how many minor adjustments Tarlant could make to the engine of the Star Princess to make it catastrophically blow up. After hearing how easily and plausibly it could happen, Seth was beginning to think it was a wonder Thoma hadn't already blown himself to bits accidentally.

He opened the glass door and entered Mel's personal laboratory in the Rugen Institute. It was an enormous room, with glass walls and skylights installed everywhere. Seth had originally thought it ostentatious and a ridiculous luxury, but had learned from Soreto later that the size of the room was a necessary concession to Mel's crippling claustrophobia.

A blast of music hit Seth's ears as he entered. Mel was playing Handel's Halleluiah Chorus at high volume. It had been like this for days, one piece of dramatic opera or classical music after the other. Seth realized it was Mel's way of saying goodbye to Earth. She was packing a few treasured belongings to send along to Greecia, too, Soreto beside her. In some ways, Mel was better off than the rest of them. Nobody would find it bizarre that fifty-seven year old Gherta Hawksbee should write her will, even if it was coincidentally done days before her death. Her family and friends were not so close that they would notice the absence of sentimental treasures from her home and office, or make a fuss if they did. Still, she seemed as disheartened as the rest, if not more so.

"Still no sign of the Enma," Seth reported. "Do you think maybe they…it…realizes we're trying to fix things?"

"It's possible," Soreto said. "Or maybe…" She shook her head and turned away.

"What?" Seth demanded.

"Never mind, I'm just…a little tired," Soreto said. "Come on, Mel, let's get this done and see if Hasmodai has discovered anything new." Seth could tell that she was holding something back. There was a tension in her voice that she couldn't quite disguise.

"I'm sure the Enma just has much bigger problems on its hands now than us," Seth assured her. "Hey, we're just fleas in the universe, right?"

She smiled at him, but the strained expression in her eyes didn't relax. Nearby, Mel stopped in her packing. She was holding a framed picture of Conrad Rugen, gazing at it.

"Mel?" Soreto said.

"Do you think Palza's soul is still trapped in Earth's Zone?" Mel asked.

Soreto took her hand. "I think that you and Palza will find each other, whatever world you're on."

Seth looked away from Mel's grief, out the window. Tina was walking back from the beach. Soran had still not found his way to her. But now, they were going out to find Soran.

* * *

By nightfall, the team of scientists had completed the adjustments to the sensor array. Now Agi set the transmitters to project an image of the Earth at the center of the array.

"Oh, cool!" Belle enthused. Of course, if anyone else had done it, she'd most likely have yawned, or whined about how boring it all was again. She was leaning on Dumas again, as if she couldn't be bothered to stand up on her own.

Soreto had lived many lives, or partial lives, now. She didn't care to calculate the exact number, but knew she had lived through over a hundred years. She was far too old and experienced to be upset by anyone so fresh and raw as Agi's doting little sister.

But she had tried to be friendly, then she had tried to be kind, then she had tried to be patient. Her efforts had been met only with hostility and rudeness. Maybe Belle's possessiveness of her brother had come from losing Agi at an impressionable age. In any case, Agi seemed completely oblivious to the situation, either because he was so focused on his work, or simply because he was in the habit of humoring Belle in everything.

Soreto found that giving in to her irritation was a welcome relief from her own fears. The girl was not one of them, and she ought to have been sent home in blissful ignorance, not exposed to research she couldn't possibly understand about problems she could do nothing to solve.

If the girl had an active brain cell in her head, she must realize by now that there was something odd about them all, something unearthly about their supertechnology, and some dire emergency they were struggling to combat.

Why did Dumas insist on keeping her around like a pet puppy? Did he actually have feelings for her? And if he did, why didn't he send her away, where she'd be safe from forming a doomed attachment to him?

As much as Soreto tried to concentrate on disliking Belle, her thoughts returned to the growing suspicion that made her heart turn to lead. Maybe, when they were alone, she could ask Hasmodai about the Enma. If anyone could find a way to pinpoint and study something as pervasive and undetectable, it was Hasmodai.

But that was pointless. If she was wrong, she would have laid a terrible burden on Hasmodai for nothing. And if she was right, she would have robbed him of whatever pleasure he might find in their last days. There was nothing they could do about it, after all, but regret and despair.

"Looking for Sauron? What is this, the Lord of the Rings, now?" Dumas smirked at Belle's sarcastic remark, and Soreto felt a welcome flicker of aggravation and humor cut through her anxiety.

Soreto would keep her fears to herself. It would be selfish to ease her own mind by sharing them.

* * *

Hasmodai turned a knob as slowly as he could. Lights flickered over the projected globe, flickered out, flashed again. He entered a new setting.

"Well?" Dumas demanded.

"It's a very delicate measurement," Hasmodai said. "It's not easy to—ah! There we are. And, uh…there we are."

On the globe, a faint blue light had appeared in the South East Islands.

"Technically, there's almost no difference between a soul that originated in Greecia's Zone and one from Earth," Hasmodai said. "Just the barest disparity in Orsel waveforms. But it's enough for these new sensors to pick out Greecian people on Earth."

Tarlant said what they all must have been thinking. "If only we'd had something like this five hundred years ago."

All around the globe they stood, faces lit by the glow of the projection. Tina looked pale and strained, Seth standing protectively at her side.

Dumas took his arm from around Belle, frowning, and stepped forward. "So, where is Saron?" He touched the holographic globe, and it turned with the movement of his fingers.

He stopped at a glowing blue spot. "That can't be right," Dumas said. The spot was enormous, covering a huge chunk of the coastline and sea of Antarctica.

"If that's Saron, he's put on a lot of weight," said Tarlant.

"Can you tighten the focus?" Agi asked. Hasmodai enlarged the globe and adjusted the sensor settings for maximum sensitivity. The blue light winked out. When Hasmodai managed to bring it back again, it was as large as ever.

"Let me see Kuril Island again," Dumas said suspiciously. A change of setting brought the enlarged archipelago into view. "As I thought," said Dumas. "Look, the entire island is lit up."

"Still, it's not nearly as large an indication as the Antarctic one, and there are eight of us here," said Soreto. That can't be a single person."

Hasmodai wondered whether to speak, or to wait and talk to Agi privately, when Dumas was not there. But Agi sensed his hesitation, and said, "What is it, Hasmodai?"

"Well, it seems to me that any anomaly like this needs to be investigated, under the circumstances," Hasmodai said. "Maybe it has something to do with the Orsel fluctuations in the Zone."

"Agreed," said Agi. "We should all go." The original plan had been for Dumas, Seth and Tina to fetch Soran while the scientists prepared the Autozone…or rather, while they stole a little more research time. "And we should bring as much of the sensor equipment as we can."

"If you must," said Dumas. "We'll take my ship, then. The Homonculoids can disassemble and load everything by morning."

"We'll meet here in the morning, then," said Agi. Everyone get a good night's sleep and bring any personal equipment you'll need."

As they went their separate ways, Hasmodai readjusted the sensors to zero in on the Zone again. Another hour or so of data gathering couldn't hurt. The robots could stow other equipment while he worked.

It was a while before he noticed Belle was leaning on the databank beside him.

"Oh, uh…hello, Belle," Hasmodai said. Though she had completely ignored him until now, he had overheard the child being embarrassingly rude to Soreto and Tarlant, and he wondered if it was now his turn.

Belle smiled at him. "Hi, Teo. Oh, sorry, I mean Hasmodai." She hiked herself up to sit on the databank. "I know somebody who LIKES you," she said teasingly.

Hasmodai stared blankly. In spite of all the years he had lived, he was only on his second time as a teenager, and he had never really got the hang of it.

"So-ret-o," said Belle. "I think she secretly likes you. You ought to ask her out sometime."

Hasmodai felt his face going hot. He opened his mouth and closed it a few times, and finally managed to get out, "Uh, I don't think so."

"Why not? You'd be so CUTE together!"

"I just…I don't think of Soreto that way," Hasmodai stuttered.

They had been together for decades, but had been under the age of twelve the entire time, not to mention on a desperate quest. Romance had hardly come into the question. Even if Hasmodai had been interested, even if Soreto had not been so intimidatingly confident and competent, he had no clue how he would even begin to suggest a romantic relationship.

"I heard her talking to Mel about you," Belle said. "She said you were hot."

From the other side of one of the sensor arrays, Soreto said, "You know, I can hear everything you're saying."

Belle turned as red as Hasmodai himself, jumped off the databank and ran. Soreto came around the corner, as did Tarlant, carrying a toolkit. Hasmodai leaned over the viewscreen, pretending to examine the data, not daring to look at either of them.

"What was all that about?" Tarlant demanded.

"Well, my best guess is that Belle is trying to break up the relationship between me and Agi." Soreto sounded amused.

"I didn't know there was anything to break up."

"Neither did I. Neither does Agi, I'm sure. He really needs to do something about that girl." Soreto leaned over to see what Hasmodai was examining so intently on the screen. It was blank.

She patted him on the shoulder, said, "Don't worry, Hasmodai, I don't think of you that way either," and left.

Hasmodai felt immensely relieved, and ever so slightly disappointed.


	8. Chapter 8 Belle, Tina: Voyage

Chapter 8: Belle, Tina: Voyage

The sun wasn't even up yet. Belle trailed along after Damien, and yawned. NOBODY got up this early.

One of the smaller buildings was being fitted out as a 'ship' and everyone was hurrying back and forth like ants, or talking earnestly in small groups. Now they were all wearing those silly dark grey costumes, some even increasing the gorfyness of it with long, black coats. Except Damien. His jumpsuit was white, with a sheen like silk, and he managed to make even that look cool.

Belle couldn't understand how Ian could be so preoccupied and involved with these people. They were awful, nothing like his friends from school. Ian was fussing over Doctor Hawksbee now, for some reason, leading her slowly into the cluttered building.

"Really, Mel, you don't have to come," Ian was saying, in that kind, gentle voice Belle hadn't heard him use since they had arrived.

"I'm not being left behind," Old Lady Hawksbee said shakily. "Not this time, not if I can help you. I'll be fine once we get there." She was pale and shaking, sweat dripping off her face. But she was still wearing the stupid costume.

"What's HER problem?" Belle said disdainfully to Damien.

Without even changing expression, Damien said, "Shut up" in a tone like ice.

He walked away, leaving her to stand in shocked humiliation.

Belle felt as if she had been stabbed in the heart with an icicle. It was Damien who had laughed at the others behind their backs with her. He had said far worse things about them than she ever did, and laughed at her insults. How could he speak to her like that, and in front of them all?

Now there was nobody she liked left on the island. Flo, the sneaky, snotty, brother-stealing bimbo, Kalie the immature, grungy, robot-obsessed super-nerd, Teo, the spineless, weedy marshmallow who geeked out over the computers from morning till night, and now Damien, the heartless, evil, two-faced JERK. Not to mention Hawksbee, who certainly was way too old not to have gotten a life by now.

Belle tossed her hair as if she didn't care a bit and walked in the opposite direction from Damien.

At this end of the building a thick, transparent wall separated a smaller room from the main building. In here were a few swivel chairs fixed to the floor, and what looked like flight controls of some sort. And, of course, a bank of futuristic-looking computers. You couldn't spit on this island without hitting a computer.

At least this part of the building wasn't jammed full of weird machines, deactivated robots, big metal crates and horrible people. Belle sat down in the central chair. When she prodded at some of the buttons on the chair arm, the steering column moved toward her, positioning itself in front of her. The wheel felt heavy and well-made, and not only turned, but could be moved up, down, and in any other direction.

These people took their toys seriously.

Belle touched another button. The floor vibrated, and a soft hum filled the building.

Then Ian and Damien charged through the door. With a snarl, Damien slapped a hand down on the button, and the hum died away.

"Belle, this is no place for you. Come on." Ian had never been so stern with her. Trying to hold back her tears, she let him firmly guide her back through the crowded storeroom and out the door once more, past the staring eyes of the other kids.

Once they were outside, Ian let go of her shoulder and she turned to face him. His expression was no longer the hard, cold Ian she had seen for the last few weeks. His eyes were so kind, and he smiled softly.

"Belle, I'm sorry. I know I haven't had much time for you, and the last few weeks must not have been any fun. But there's something I need to do now, and you can't help."

"But Ian—"

"There's a ferry going to the Mainland in two hours, Belle. I need you to be on it. Can you do that for me?"

Belle sighed and kicked her toe into the concrete pavement under her feet. There wasn't really much point of staying any more.

"I suppose," she said reluctantly. Flo and Kalie, who she could see over Ian's shoulder, did not high-five each other behind his back, but Belle was sure they wanted to.

Ian's smile widened, but his eyes were sad. "Thanks, Belle. I'll make it up to you if I can. You take care of yourself. Have a safe trip home, and tell Mom I love her. Both of you."

He hugged her, and turned to walk away.

As he did, a faded memory came back, a barely remembered scene from when she was three years old. Ian, dressed in black, walking away from her. Strange children in dark clothing surrounding him.

It was them. They had come back.

And they were stealing her brother away again.

* * *

In the cargo hold of Dumas's ship, Tina sat beside Mel and held her trembling hand. As the last of the equipment was brought aboard, Soreto and Tarlant directed the robots to distribute it around the outer walls of the hold, leaving as large an empty space in the center as possible. Still, the quarters were cramped. The ship must have been made for Dumas specially, scaled to his diminutive (by Greecian standards) physique. It would have been the size of a child's toy on Greecia.

The robots, spiderlike, somehow scrambled up the wall and fastened themselves to the ceiling.

"We'll be taking off soon," Dumas announced, walking to the cockpit. Agi, Seth and and Tarlant followed.

"Are you all right, Mel?" Soreto asked doubtfully. "Would you like to stay in the cockpit? You could at least see out."

"In THERE?" Mel said, with a slightly hysterical laugh. The cockpit was even smaller than the open cargo space.

"We'll stay here," said Tina. Even in the cockpit, there were not enough chairs or safety harnesses for the eight of them. The ship had been built for one.

Soreto nodded and moved to join the others. Dumas was giving them a quick demonstration of the ship's controls and emergency systems. When he mentioned the escape pods, Tina looked around the hold until she saw where the two rearward hatches were. The front ones she could see through the cockpit's transparent wall.

"Dumas will take the first flight shift," Agi said. "We'll switch pilots every hour. I expect we will be on automatic flight for most of the trip, but someone needs to be fresh and alert at the controls at all times."

"Just how long is it going to take to get there?" Tarlant asked. "Full speed, we ought to be able to get to Antarctica from the thermosphere in a couple of hours, even in a little nutshell like this."

"We no longer have the luxury of flying wherever we like," said Dumas. "The people of Earth have made some amazing advances in technology over the last year. My ship was detected on arrival, and I was forced to destroy six military fighter jets before I managed to evade their sensors and resume my course. To avoid sensor detection, we will be flying at subsonic speeds, just above the waves, and avoiding all landmasses and shipping lanes. If we have the misfortune to cross paths with a ship or low-flying plane, we will submerge and continue underwater, at an even more reduced speed. We may reach our mysterious Antarctic destination by evening, if all goes well, or it may take days. I hope nobody's in a hurry."

Tina felt Mel's hand clench.

The briefing broke up, and most of the crew returned to the cargo hold. Seth dropped onto the crate next to Tina. "So, you okay, Mel?" he asked.

"Never better," she said through clenched teeth.

Through the clear wall, Tina could see her brother Dumas strapping himself into the pilot seat, and Soreto buckling up in one of the other two chairs. Agi went to the outer door.

"I'm going to close the door, now," he said. "Ready?"

Mel nodded, but Tina heard her gasp slightly when the portal sealed itself shut. Dumas started the engines.

"Last chance, Mel," Agi said. "Are you all right?"

"I wish everybody would stop asking me that!"

Agi nodded and returned to strap himself into the remaining cockpit chair. The ship rose from the landing pad and moved forward. Through the clear wall, past the piloting controls, Tina could see that they were flying low over open sea.

She wondered what they would find in Antarctica. Soran, perhaps? However she wanted to be with him again, part of her hoped not. He had said he would find her. If she went looking for him, didn't that imply that she didn't trust him? That she doubted his strength and loyalty and dedication? When Soran found her, even if they were living new lives, and no longer knew themselves or each other: she wanted her soul to be able to say to his, "You found me. I knew you'd come."

Conversation died quickly among the five of them. They had all been on the same island for three weeks, had talked everything to death, and had no idea what lay ahead. Still, nobody seemed able to relax, and Tina wasn't surprised. Already exhausted, they had all worked themselves to the limit this week hoping against hope to discover the reason and solution to the Zone crisis. Their leader, Agi, seemed to be under great stress lately, which must affect the entire group. Soreto, too, seemed to be suffering under some terrible strain. Even Dumas was increasingly edgy. And right now, of course, Mel's barely suppressed panic was sending waves of tension through the room.

The voyagers settled into an uneasy silence.

I don't suppose anyone brought a deck of cards," said Tarlant at last.

Silence.

"I brought a book," said Hasmodai. "I could read aloud."

"It's not more Steinbeck, is it?" Tarlant asked suspiciously.

More silence.

"Say, Tina, you brought Helga's sketch pad, didn't you?" Seth said. "I'm sure we'd all love to have a look at your drawings!"

"My bag's buried way in the back. It's too much trouble."

"No trouble at all!" Eager as always either to please her or to have an excuse for action, Seth leaped up, squeezed through some of the large equipment blocks, scrambled over a stack of crates, and started groping through a heap of loose cargo. "I'll have it in a minute, I know it's right about-YAAAGH!"

A high-pitched scream rang through the cargo hold. "Let go of me! Ian, HELP!"

By the time Agi and Soreto had unbuckled and entered the cargo area, Seth had dragged a kicking and struggling Belle into the open by one ankle.

"We got a stowaway!" Seth announced.

"Let me GO!" Belle screamed again.

"Let her go," Agi ordered, and Seth dropped Belle's ankle. She jumped to her feet and gave Seth a shove.

"Belle!" Agi snapped. "What are you doing here?" His brow was creased with anger and consternation. Behind him, Soreto's face was an expressionless mask.

Poor Belle, Tina thought. She's so young for her age, and they're so old for theirs.

"I'm not letting them take you away again, Ian! I'm not!" Belle said. "I know what they're doing. They'll have to take me with you this time!"

"And what about Mother? What happens to her if we both vanish?"

Belle matched her brother's glare, and for a while the two of them stood, glowering at each other.

Agi's face softened first. "Well, you're here. It can't be helped."

"So, what's really going on? Is this a real spaceship? What planet are we going to?"

"Earth," said Agi. "It's a water planet with very stubborn inhabitants. Mel, do we have a spare body suit?"

"In the equipment locker. We brought one for Soran."

"Get it, Tarlant. Belle, you need to wear one of these-"

"Like that's going to happen. Can we say 'Fashion Disaster'?"

"Belle!" Agi was looking angry again. "It's still not too late to have Dumas take us back to Kuril Island and drop you off. You need to put this on NOW so we can start your training."

"My training?"

"Yes. You'll like it," Agi promised. "It's…it's like high-tech super-ninja fighting technique. We'll get you started as soon as you change."

Belle looked around. "Where am I supposed to change?"

"That door's the bathroom," said Agi, pointing.

"Or you could change in an escape pod," said Tarlant, "and hope nobody hits the eject button."

Belle stuck her tongue out at him and entered the bathroom. Agi turned. "Soreto, would you please teach Belle how to use the body suit and energy pack?"

"Me?" said Soreto in disbelief. Agi stared at her. "Agi, she doesn't want me to train her. She wants Big Brother Ian."

"She hasn't got to know the rest of you yet, and if she's going to be with us it's important she learns to trust you. This is a chance for you to earn her respect."

"It isn't going to work. I don't know if you've noticed, Agi, but your sister seems to have an unhealthy obsession-"

"Don't argue with me, Soreto!" Agi barked. "My piloting shift is about to start. Just take care of it!" He entered the cockpit, punching the door control with his fist so it slid shut behind him, leaving Soreto staring in fury at the closed door.

Tina put a hand on Soreto's shoulder. She felt Soreto's anger begin to subside. "It's okay," Tina said. "It will be all right."

"You think?"

Tina hoped.


	9. Chapter 9: Wreckage

Chapter 9: Wreckage

Dumas lounged over a couple of cargo crates. He was sitting near Mel, and while his dark glasses hid his eyes and his focus from the others, all of his attention was on her. Mel's face was damp and white, her terror palpable, her every breath a soft whimper at the back of her throat. It was all his doing, and he felt no pain about it.

He took responsibility for it. When young Gherta Hawksbee had finished her postgraduate work and completed her Master's degree, Dumas had seen to it that she was installed as the director of the GED group, at an age where many of her fellow students were begging for internships or settling for unrewarding commercial work. And when GED had come to the end of its usefulness, Dumas supplied her with the means and support to establish the Rugen institute in its place, this time with complete freedom to pursue whatever research she chose.

But none of this changed or made amends for the fact that Dumas had scarred Mel's soul so deeply that it caused her terrors even into her next life.

This he had done for reasons that, at the time, he believed to be good. In the quest for his long-lost sister, he had tortured Mel, killed Hesma, and ended the Greecian lives of Agi and his associates. And killed Georca, though few seemed to regret this. Dumas certainly did not.

And, in the end, it had proved meaningless. Tina had been found, but she did not choose to leave Earth. She, of all people, must deplore the steps he had taken to find her.

And how was it different, what he was doing now? Was he making the same misguided choices over again? It had almost been a relief when the departure of Ian's foolish little sister stopped him from another crime of convenience, but now she was back, and all would move forward as he had planned.

Mel shuddered and seemed to grip harder at Tina's hand. Dumas wondered if his presence made her terrors worse. Probably.

But in his blackened, hardened heart, he felt no pain, no sorrow, no remorse, no horror at what he had done to this woman.

Just a sense of responsibility, and a thin, contemptible pity.

Dumas disgusted himself.

* * *

Belle stepped out of the bathroom, wearing the Greecian body suit grudgingly. It was an unlovely thing, and the fabric was weird and uncooperative. No matter how she had tried to stretch and tuck and adjust it, and even though the clothes themselves seemed to be trying to conform to her body shape, there was just no disguising the fact that it had been designed by a geek, and for a man, and for someone much taller than she was. It wasn't fair—Flo, Helga and Doctor Hawksbee's outfits had obviously been custom tailored for them, at least. Finally, after a long war with the garment, she resigned herself to looking hideous and left the bathroom.

Ian was nowhere in sight. Belle frowned. She hadn't been THAT long. He could have waited. She finally saw he was up front in the control room. Belle would have joined him, but that Flo was standing in the main passage between the bathroom and the cockpit. Belle squeezed to the side, between two stacks of metal crates, but saw she'd have to pass Damien if she went that way. She tried a crevice in the other direction, and tripped over Teo, who was curled up in a nook, reading. "Excuse me please," Teo said, VERY politely. Once she had turned the corner, though, that way turned out to be a dead end, and she had to clamber over Teo again on the way back.

Flo was still standing there.

"You're in my way," Belle announced.

"Are you ready for your training?" Flo asked.

"Yes, I am," Belle said, trying to push past, but Flo moved to block her.

"Would you prefer to start with the uses of the energy pack, or just start out getting the hang of the motion assists?" Flo asked. At Belle's blank expression, Flo pulled the metal canister off her belt and squeezed it. It transformed somehow into a long, lethal-looking blade. "Energy pack," Flo said helpfully. "It collects ambient energy, maintains the charge of the suit, can be used to power small devices or activate data records, or—"

"No, thanks," Belle said. "Ian's going to teach me."

"Ian asked me to teach you. He's busy, and has a lot on his mind right now."

Belle scowled. "Then I'll wait until he's not busy."

"And I'll teach you about the energy pack while you're waiting," said Flo.

Really, couldn't she take a hint? Did Belle have to come right out and tell her to get lost?

"Some of the functions of the energy pack, such as the conversion to the Enma blade, are activated by a direction of will, and it may take some practice to reliably—"

"Not interested," Belle said, dropping to sprawl on a couple of crates and turning her head aside. It would be so childish to cover her eyes and plug her ears, but really, if Flo just WOULDN'T give it up, she might have to.

"Maybe a demonstration of the motion enhancement system would interest you," said Flo. Suddenly she dashed to one side, leaping. She kicked off the side of one stack of crates, rebounded off the opposite heap, and with a few more lightning-quick moves (Belle had to snap her gaping mouth shut and remember to look unimpressed) kicked off again from the ceiling. On her way down she did a flip, drawing the sword and raising it over her head. As she landed in front of Belle, black cloak billowing around her, she brought the sword down with a ferocious shout, slicing Belle from head to floor and landing on one knee.

Belle was unhurt. It must be some kind of fake practice sword. She was glad her complete shock had paralysed her and kept her from flinching. As Flo came to her feet, Belle delicately raised one hand to cover her mouth and yawned.

Something seemed to snap in Flo. "All right, little girl," she said. "You want to play tough? We'll play tough. Tarlant! Hasmodai! Bring the scanner."

Flo spun and walked to the cockpit door, Teo and Kalie scrambling to follow her. So, they were going to tattle on her to Ian? Let them! They'd see whose side Big Brother was on.

Hers.

Right?

* * *

In one of his lifetimes, Agi could no longer remember which, his host family had owned a reliable cart horse. It wasn't pretty, or fast, or friendly, but you could put down the reins or even fall asleep, and the horse would bring you home.

Agi missed Hesma.

On their travels, whenever Agi had been exhausted or discouraged or too wounded to go on struggling, he knew he could quietly lay back for a short time and recover his strength while Hesma, like the reliable cart horse, pulled the group on with his relentless determination and focus.

After the countless years they had spent together, Agi knew all the strengths and weaknesses of his team, and his own as well.

Hasmodai, brilliant in the laboratory, was not cut out for a hard life. He needed to be motivated and pushed, he tended to moan and complain, and he easily let himself be led astray. On the other hand, the same open heart that caused him to share his sorrows and gloom led him to share joys and comforts as well. His poetry, his encouragement and his remembrances had helped them to keep their humanity alive over the years. And, perhaps because of his own emotional vulnerability, he could be counted on to never say anything hurtful.

Tarlant was undisciplined and easily distracted from his goals. His hard-headed self-sufficiency made it difficult to get through to him, and Agi had occasionally been forced to chastise Hasmodai harshly for lapses they had both been guilty of, knowing that Tarlant would be more affected by his friend's punishment than his own. They would not have survived without his mechanical skills, or his stubborn perseverance.

Mel and Palza—even now it was hard to think of them separately. Their unfailing dedication and love for one another and their positive attitude had been a source of stability and hope for the entire group. Agi wondered how many lifetimes Palza had spent hiding his crumbling spirit under that cheerful facade. It was Agi's mistake and responsibility: he had thought both of them perfectly steady. Then Palza broke, and Mel became little more than a ghost of herself. If only Agi had recognized Palza's disintegration in time, could he have stopped it? Could he have saved them both? Though Mel had returned to them at the last, she was wounded in other ways now. It made Agi sick to see Dumas sitting there beside her without a care, knowing his presence must be making Mel's horrors even more intense. What Mel could use right now, Agi thought, was less Dumas, and less hand-holding, and something to take her mind off her fears.

Soreto was strong. Her warmth and kindness had sometimes been all the difference between survival and despair. When all their efforts failed, she found creative new approaches. If she had a weakness, it was that she was too easy-going. She could rarely bring herself to be harsh with the others, even though a leader sometimes needed to be. There were times Agi despised his own actions and words, even when he knew what he did was necessary.

Hesma had helped with that as well. When harsh words were necessary, Agi had been free to let them pour from Hesma, like water from a tap, without doing more himself than setting the flow in motion and putting a stop to it when enough had gushed forth.

And now there was no Hesma, no reliable cart horse, no easy way out. No more sleeping at the reins. Agi had to be strong all the time. Agi had to harden his heart and deal out all the reprimands and rebukes himself. His people came to him for answers, for structure, for guidance, for decisions, for reassurance, for discipline. For leadership, in short. There was no rest or cease.

If he showed weakness, they would lose faith in him, and they would have nowhere to go, nobody to turn to. They would be lost.

He could not fail them.

In some ways, Agi could almost have let Dumas step into Hesma's shoes, but Dumas was amoral and devious and filled with hatred for them. He would never inspire the respect and loyalty Hesma had, and didn't want to. Agi had to protect his team from Dumas, could not use Dumas's obsession to make them stronger, as he had been able to use Hesma's.

Not that Hesma didn't have his faults. He was another complainer, but unlike the mournful Hasmodai, he turned his pain into a howling wind of rage and bitterness that tore at everybody's spirits.

Agi remembered, a few years ago, riding the train with his people. Hesma had suddenly burst into a venomous tirade of frustration and anger that had left them all exhausted.

The train had been going through Wattford, the town in which Hesma had been born and lived with his last host family.

Had anybody else made the connection? Did they truly believe Hesma's claim that he was completely detached from his Earth life, that he wanted to go home only out of longing for Greecia?

Or had they remained silent only because, over the centuries, they had learned not to pick at one another's raw wounds? Sympathy, more cruel than any evil or brutality, could slice you to the bone.

Wherever Hesma's soul was now, Agi hoped it was at peace, freed at last from their agonizing artificial cycle of birth, abandonment, despair, death, and rebirth.

The door opened. "Agi?" Soreto entered, a grim set to her jaw, followed by Tarlant and Hasmodai.

They needed him to be strong again. They needed his leadership.

"You respect scientific evidence, don't you, Agi?" Soreto demanded. "I need you to take part in a brief data-gathering experiment. Tarlant can take the controls."

Confused and still half wrapped in thought, Agi let Soreto lead him away from the control panel as Tarlant slipped into the pilot's seat. Just as he was about to ask what was going on, Soreto seized the front of his shirt, pulling him forward, wrapped her other arm around his neck and pressed her lips to his.

It was as if Soreto had thrown a rock through the window of his thoughts, sending an explosion of sparkling shards in every direction.

The rush of unexpected sensations froze him in place: the softness of her lips touching his, the scrambling to remember what he had been trying to think about, the feathery caress of her breath on his cheek, the total confusion, the warmth of her body against his.

It went on for such a time that Agi's brain reorganized enough to wonder what was going on. Was this something else he had missed? Like Palza's shattering, had he totally failed to notice this…whatever it was with Soreto?

Should he do something about it?

And in heaven's name, what?

Then Soreto stepped back, and he took his arms from around her (When had he put them there?) and Soreto said, "Reading, Hasmodai?"

Hasmodai was standing near, holding a scanner, its hourglass-shaped sensor flickering with energy.

"Yes, increased body temperature, heightened pulse rate, blood pressure skyrocketing—"

"Well, that should hardly be a surprise," Agi said with a sudden burst of anger. "The shock alone—"

"Not you," said Soreto. "Belle."

"Her cortical center is about to burn out," Tarlant said. "Known in medical terms as a hissy fit."

"Someone has a serious Big Brother complex, and you need to do something about it," said Soreto.

Agi stood silent for a moment while his numbed brain tried to make sense of…well, of everything.

"Hey, Hasmodai," said Tarlant suddenly. "Take a reading on Agi."

Agi turned such a quelling glare on Hasmodai that the boy immediately shut off the scanner. He turned the glare on Soreto. "Didn't I ask you to train Belle—"

"I am training her, since you won't," Soreto said, her eyes fierce. "This is Lesson One." She kissed Agi again, harder.

Agi was tempted simply to stand there again, lost in the heat of it, to just give in and let somebody else take charge for a while.

But they needed him to be strong, or to at least give the appearance of strength, and this was not helping. He put a hand on Soreto's shoulder and gently pushed her away.

"Soreto," he said warningly. She folded her arms across her chest and met his gaze with calm defiance. Agi turned toward the other two, who were casually trying to look as if they weren't paying any attention.

"If the three of you can't find any better way to fill your time than pulling this sort of…prank," Agi said, "then you will take over flying the ship for the rest of the journey. I will be in the cargo hold, trying to make sure Mel doesn't lose her mind and teaching my sister what she needs to know to survive Antarctica." And giving his heart time to stop pounding.

Agi left the cockpit with the terrible feeling that everything had just become even more complicated.

* * *

Pollux's thumbs ached. The only way he could block the fear from his mind was to focus completely on something else. The video games had been good for that, and even the pain in his hands was a welcome distraction. But now he had beaten them all, and they no longer held enough challenge to concentrate his attention.

In the hangar, technicians had drilled out a hole like a round grave where Castor had marked out his diagram, and they were installing various engines and circuits around it. Soon the central pit would be filled with layers of intricate circular shapes in carbon fiber, designed by Castor on the computer and sent out to countries all over the world to be manufactured at a hundred different companies, so that nobody outside the station would see the full design. There had even been about fifty fake discs designed, for camouflage, and every single design had its own patent application prepared to submit and locked in the safe in Doctor Mellert's office.

Between his constant gaming and Castor's recent work, Pollux had barely seen his twin in days. He returned to their room, which was small and cramped, like almost every room in the station, and lay on his back on the bed.

Outside, he knew, Antarctica was dark. So, so dark, with a few hours of weak, bare sunlight a day. The stars glowed brightly in that terrible night, unwinking in the cold dry air.

But they were not his stars. Not the constellations he knew. Not the ones that had meaning for him.

On Castor's side of the room were a couple of crates filled with spare parts, broken pencils, dismantled electronics and torn pages of half-designed projects. Pollux rummaged through them, collecting as many light emitting diodes as he could find, connecting them together with the thinnest web of wire filament. Then he painstakingly attached them to the ceiling and to the station's electrical system.

Pollux turned off the light and lay on his bed, looking up again. There were his stars.

Since he had first been told the story, he had been captivated. Castor and Pollux, the twins: half brothers who loved each other so much they had been placed in the sky as constellations, so they would never, never be parted. Even now he wasn't sure why the story tore at his heart.

The door opened, letting in the weak artificial light of the station. Castor stood in the doorway, blinking in the unexpected darkness.

"Gemini," Pollux said, pointing at the ceiling. "We'll always be together, right, Castor?"

"You've got it wrong," Castor said, examining the ceiling. With a shrug he went to his desk, opening his computer. Soon the glow of the screen lit his face in the darkness, as he went to work, designing, redesigning, perfecting his diagrams.

"Why are you doing this?" Pollux finally said. "The climate's under control, the air is cleaner, the ocean is recovering. We're doing good things here at Brightwater, Castor. Good things."

"How long do you think Brightwater would do good things if it wasn't profitable?" Castor's voice was cold with cynicism. "We're just a means to an end to them, just like they are to us."

"But why? Why-"

"Don't you get tired of it?" Castor burst out. "Don't you ever just want to get it over with? Don't you just want it all to END?"

Pollux wrapped his arms around his chest and squeezed his eyes shut tight. Tears rolled off the sides of his face, leaving a cold streak from his eyes to his ears. He whispered, "I want to go home."

"We don't HAVE a home!" Castor exploded. He hurled the computer against the wall, where it smashed in flash of electricity and a shower of blue sparks. Castor slammed the door as he left the room.

Pollux lay on the bed a while longer, staring up at his stars. He wondered for the first time if the pain and fear he had felt all his life was all his own.

Was he tired of it? Did he want it all to end?

Yes, he thought he probably did.

And there was a means to end it close at hand, if he could get outside the building and across the ice without being stopped. If the shock of plunging into the Antarctic sea didn't kill you instantly, the cold could incapacitate you and drain your life away in minutes.

He was small. It might work even faster.

* * *

"Well, at least he's stopped brooding," was all Soreto said as she strapped herself into the other cockpit chair and swivelled to turn her back to them.

Tarlant shot him a glance that said as clearly as words, "Should have taken a reading on Soreto, too." Hasmodai was glad he hadn't said it aloud. You never knew what Tarlant might blurt out.

The door to the cockpit had been left open, and from the other side, Hasmodai could hear Agi giving orders to Mel. Before long she had a tool kit strapped over her shoulder and was dismantling and carrying out diagnostic checks and adjustments on one of the large energy collectors, hands shaking and Agi barking orders as if he were a sheep dog nipping at her heels.

Agi could be very hard sometimes.

With nothing else to occupy his time, Hasmodai activated the scanner and began a series of routine calibrations and maintenance checks, then gazed out the window for a while. He enjoyed flying, though the enclosed cockpit didn't give the same exhilarating sense of speed and freedom as the fogboats had. He had liked the fogboats, and their all-purpose robot carrier, Wonder, though he had not felt the sense of deep personal attachment Tarlant had. It often amazed him that Tarlant had managed to build his machines out of the primitive and raw elements available to them on Earth, and that Hesma, Palza and Mel had managed to create the energy packs, Enma blades, body suits and other useful gadgets.

With each lifetime, the technology of Earth had advanced, and the materials available to them had improved. By the time of their last rebirth, they had managed to improve their gear almost to the quality of the Greecian-made bodysuits they wore now. The energy packs most of them carried were still those Hesma had created. Modern Greecian units may have been superior in many ways, but the Enma blade was something unique to their team, and the familiar canister on his belt felt like an old friend.

And any familiarity was comforting at the moment. New tensions and undercurrents seemed to be tearing their team apart. Agi, usually a calm tower of strength, seemed to be unravelling at the edges. The usually steady Soreto, who had often smoothed over disagreements and conflicts in the group, seemed more edgy and introverted every day.

Hasmodai suspected there might be a growing attraction between them—after that kiss, how could he not—but knew that neither could possibly be silly, selfish or stupid enough to be reacting this way to it in the middle of a world-threatening crisis. There must be something else.

It made Hasmodai worry. Did they know something important they hadn't shared? He was sure Tarlant, Tina and Seth were out of the loop as well.

He had gone so far as considering asking Dumas about it. He might know. Dumas would surely have no hesitation in giving them upsetting news. In the end, Hasmodai was afraid to ask.

So far, Hasmodai's own research had been rewarding. While it was true that the Orsel imbalance and its effects on Earth and Greecia were continuing, the rate remained fairly constant. Given time, he was certain they could discover how to control the phenomenon. There was absolutely no scientific evidence that their own actions had set it in motion.

Of course, there was no evidence to the contrary, either.

Lack of evidence was the key problem. On Greecia, they had been the most prominent research group investigating the Zone, and after the Tina incident, royal support and funding for Zone research had vanished. Little more had been learned apart from what their team already knew.

But now they had new and better equipment, and as long as they stayed on Earth, they had twenty-seven times the research time. Hasmodai couldn't understand why Agi had capitulated to Dumas's demand for immediate action in place of more study.

At least Antarctica might give them a final chance to learn something useful. If he only managed to stick to his work, who knew? Hasmodai might save the world.

After a while, Tarlant seemed to become bored and started to test the controls of the ship, swooping gently from side to side and dipping down to skim the surface of the ocean. The ship rocked as a tall wave broke over the viewport.

"Stay on course," Agi warned from the rear.

"You don't want to make Teo seasick again," Belle added, unnecessarily in Hasmodai's opinion.

Tarlant sighed and returned to the regular flightpath. Looking back into the cargo space, Hasmodai saw that Agi was training Belle in using the bodysuit's motion enhancers. Mel was still tinkering feverishly with the technical equipment.

Dumas's route had been well planned. Only once did they see any other craft, and Dumas's ship took them under the waves until they were well past the trawler. When Tarlant was tired, Hasmodai took over the controls, as Soreto still seemed preoccupied. The ship's monitoring and sensor systems were extensive, and Hasmodai turned on every view, surrounding himself with projected scenes of what was happening behind the ship, above, below, to each side and in the cargo area, as well as geographic positioning maps, 3D contour area maps, heat detection maps, signal tracking systems and local biological and meteorological readings.

"Don't forget to actually watch where you're going," Tarlant said, but Hasmodai just smiled and leaned back, enveloped by every bit of information he needed in order to know exactly where he was and what was going on around him. Machines made life so much simpler.

Eventually, Soreto took over the wheel, switching off half the displays, then Tarlant again, and again Hasmodai. Occasionally one of them drifted to the rear of the ship for a time. Occasionally one of the others came to the cockpit to visit, though never Agi. The sun was left behind early as they approached the Antarctic circle, and the outer temperature reading dropped steadily as it got darker.

It was on Hasmodai's third flight shift that an alarm started to sound, and the signal tracking system flashed with expanding green circles. Agi and Dumas hurried into the cockpit to check the displays.

"We're approaching the climate control system," said Dumas. "There's no way around it, it rings the globe. We've been picked up by their automated anti-terrorist defense system."

"Is there any danger?" Agi asked.

"No doubt a few missiles will be fired at us."

A recorded message was coming over the signal tracking now, a warning to turn back or be fired upon.

A cold trickle of sweat ran down the back of Hasmodai's neck. "So, should I take us underwater, or would it be better to gain altitude—"

"Ignore it," said Dumas.

"But—"

"Keep on course."

More alarms started shrieking. Three flashing red dots moved through the 3D area grid, swerving their courses to converge on the central point. Through the rear, lower and right-hand views, Hasmodai could see a cluster of dark things approaching quickly, their vapor trails glowing in the darkness , lit by the fire of their thrusters. His knuckles turned white on the steering controls.

A missile struck on the side of the ship, filling that view with a roiling blast of flame and smoke. Another burst on the ship's belly.

Hasmodai barely felt the bump.

"You see?" Dumas said, as the third blew itself up against the front viewport. "Keep going, once we're past the regulator band they will have no more interest in us. Earth has nothing that can damage this ship."

Another missile was fired at them, Dumas watching its approach with contempt.

It struck, and the ship rocked. Even more alarms started shrieking, and those were nearly drowned by the howl of wind rushing through the torn hull.

"Take it down!" Dumas shouted.

"Down? What?" How could he take the ship underwater at this speed, with a breached hull? It was unthinkable! It was suicide.

Dumas seized the steering control and forced it down. They hit the water with a shuddering thud, and continued. Hasmodai heard the rushing of water from the rear of the ship, felt the first trickle around his boots.

"Always the man of action, eh, Hasmodai?" Dumas said before rushing into the cargo area.

"Tarlant, activate the robots! We need to seal the breach. Everyone else, into the cockpit!" Agi followed Dumas, Tarlant and Soreto behind him.

The sea was filled with chunks of floating ice that would have been barely visible without the 3D readout to define their edges. Steering anxiously around them, Hasmodai still managed to keep an eye on the cargo space. It was in chaos, every piece of unsecured equipment having been thrown forward. Tina was staggering to her feet, shouting for Mel.

"You get in the cockpit, I'll find Mel!" Seth shouted, shoving Tina toward Soreto, who helped her through the door. Dumas had already found Mel and was trying to help her up from a rubble of wrecked machinery.

Another alarm went off, another two red dots appeared on the 3D display. "Incoming!" Hasmodai shouted. "Two of them!"

Tina strapped herself into one of the empty chairs. Soreto was dragging a resisting Belle to the cockpit, while Belle screamed that she HAD to help Ian. Seth leaped over a fallen sensor panel to join Dumas in lifting Mel from the wreckage. Agi struggled to reach the hull breach as one of the robots finally began to move and Tarlant dropped to the floor to propel himself up to the other.

The second missile hit. "IAN!" Belle screamed, throwing herself at the door, but Soreto punched the switch and it slid shut just as the wave of black water hit it and the ship lurched with the impact. Every one of Hasmodai's displays vanished. He was blind: there was nothing to see but the forward viewport, poorly lit by the few remaining working lights. Soreto forcibly strapped the hysterical Belle into the remaining chair. Looking back over his shoulder, Hasmodai could see nothing beyond the transparent wall but blackness. Was anybody there? Were the rest of the crew lost? Were they still back there, drowning in their own ship? Was there still a missile tracking them? Looking forward he tried to make sense of the shifting shades of darkness. Was that an ice floe or just the moonlight filtering down into the ocean? Should he turn? Which way? He had no idea what lay on either side of him, where he could go, whether they were all about to smash into—

He didn't realize Soreto had been shouting his name until she ripped open the flight harness and shoved him out of the pilot seat, taking his place. Hasmodai landed in the cold wash of water on the deck, rolling as the ship turned and yawed violently, and when he fetched up against something hard and tried to raise himself, an icy, choking wave hit him and knocked him over again.

Hands seized the shoulders of his coat, and when he had blinked the water from his eyes, he saw that Tina was trying to help him up. He clutched at her harness straps and her chair, stumbling onto his knees. Over her shoulder, he could see that the entire cargo area was simply gone, the twisted fraction of one wall extending back into the darkness of the sea.

He struggled to stand, but as soon as he managed it the deck of the ship tore itself from under his feet, and there was a blinding flash of hot white light.


	10. Chapter 10: Bottom of the Clear Deep Sea

Chapture 10: At the Bottom of the Deep Clear Sea

"Hasmodai…Hasmodai…Hasmodai…"

When he opened his eyes, it took him several minutes of blinking before the blurriness cleared, and even after, he barely recognized Soreto. Her face was streaked with blood, her eyes and nose puffy and swollen.

"Soreto?"

She looked relieved. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Some of them," he answered.

He was sitting in a chair. He leaned forward to stand, but a wave of pain and dizziness seized him, and he closed his eyes again. His head felt…he put up a hand to feel the back of his head, but Soreto caught his wrist.

"I found it." Hasmodai heard the sound of feet sloshing through water and Princess Tina appeared, holding an aid kit. Hasmodai could hear Bell sobbing from the other end of the cockpit.

"Is this all?" Soreto stared into the kit. She shook her head. "This isn't going to be much help. Hold still, Hasmodai, I'll do what I can, but I'm afraid it will just be surface healing."

"How bad is it?" Hasmodai asked as Soreto pulled out a small medical scanner, activated the packet of biogel and started gently spreading it over the back of his head.

"You have a minor skull fracture," she said. "And a concussion, but no serious brain damage. Yet, anyway. You hit that viewport pretty hard."

Hasmodai suddenly remembered the last few minutes of their journey. He had frozen at the controls. Soreto had taken over. She must not have had time to strap herself in, either, which explained the face.

He had let them down when they needed him most. Hasmodai, always the man of action. Dumas might say it again if he was alive to do so.

"This isn't going to do much for you but heal the skin and stop the bleeding," said Soreto. "How are you feeling? Does your neck hurt at all? Can you turn your head?"

"A little." He turned his head. "Ouch."

"What's the square root of two thousand, two hundred and nine?"

"Uh, forty-seven?"

"Can you move your toes?"

"Yes."

"Any blurriness or double vision?"

"N..not so much any more."

"Hallucinations?"

Hasmodai opened his mouth to speak, saw it, sucked in a deep breath, and answered.

"Yes!"

The others looked at him, then turned to gaze out the veiwport where he was staring.

Now that the ship was still, its lights seemed to illuminate the entire sea, sending an intense beam that penetrated the ice field and made the floes glow softly. He might never have seen it, thinking the distant object simply a more symmetrical iceberg than most, but then, he had grown up with the knowledge, the stories, the mystery of it…in his first childhood.

"Oh!" Tina saw it, too, then, pushing forward to stare out the viewport, her hands on the cold screen.

And finally, Soreto said, "The Atalanta," in a hushed tone.

"What?" Belled demanded, sniffling. "What are you looking at?"

Hasmodai hesitated, wondering whether it was time Ian's poor, clueless sister was told what was going on around her. Soreto spoke.

"It's a…lost ship. Vanished hundreds of years ago without a trace." That had been in Greecian time, of course. The Atalanta must have been here for thousands of Earth years. Softly semi-translucent and blue-white, it blended with the icebergs, the stalactites of its antiquated sensor cluster dangling from the tapered end of a shape that gently widened, broadened, and finally became one with the ice sheet covering the oceantop. How enormous was it?

"You're nuts!" Belle sobbed. "There's nothing there! We should be looking for Ian!"

"She's right," Soreto said, turning away from the viewport. "Tina, start the escape pod engine. Hasmodai, will you be all right, here? At the rate the cold water will be draining the energy packs, those suits won't keep them alive for—"

"I'm fine. Go!"

"I'm coming, too!" Belle announced, finally unsnapping her restraint harness.

"You're not. The pod is made for two, and we'll need any extra space for survivors." Soreto was working quickly at the computer, checking the pod's systems and condition. "You stay here and look after Hasmodai."

"Why me?" Belle whined. "MY BROTHER is out there!"

"Tina's brother is out there, too." Soreto finished her check and moved to the pod entry hatch. "You stay because you're use-…because you're youngest."

"I'm not THAT much younger than you are."

Soreto stopped for just an instant, long enough to stare firmly into Belle's eyes. "Yes," she said. "You are." Then she swung into the pod, the hatch closed, and the emergency craft burst away from the ship in a flurry of bubbles.

Belle watched, wringing her hands, until the lights of the pod had vanished among the icebergs. Then she turned to him.

"Come on, Teo. We'll go search in the other pod."

"What? No. Soreto said to stay here."

"Are you always a good little boy? Do you always do what 'Soreto' tells you to?"

"Pretty much," Hasmodai confirmed.

Belle bit her lip and stood fuming for half a minute. Then she stomped her foot, making the cold water spatter. "You're USELESS!" She ran to the other escape hatch.

"Belle, no, wait—" He rose to his feet, but at the sudden movement another wave of sickening dizziness swept over him, and a stabbing pain shot through his neck and back. Before he had recovered, Belle was through the hatch and had sealed it after her.

Staggering through the bilge, Hasmodai could only hope Belle was unable to figure out how the pod worked before he got to the hatch controls. It was a vain hope—within seconds, the pod burst away, heading in the opposite direction from Soreto, and vanished from the viewport. Hasmodai leaned against the wall, exhausted, then returned to sink into the chair once again.

He WAS useless.

Hasmodai, the man of action.

The ship was silent now, the only sound the trickle of water from a cracked flange in the escape pod hatch. Hasmodai sat silent and unmoving in the emptiness.

He didn't notice the level of the water rising until it reached the tops of his boots.

* * *

Pollux was about to slip past the open door of Doctor Mellert's office when her intercom buzzed, causing her to turn away from her desk and hit the button. "Yes?"

"It's Walfang," a tinny voice crackled from the speaker. "Thought you'd want to know, an unauthorized air vehicle of unidentified origin just attempted a flyover of section one, unit Alpha. A barrage of standard missiles failed to stop it, but one of the experimental Weavers knocked it out of the sky, and two more demolished it below the surface."

"Castor will be pleased," Mellert said. "He wondered how accurate they'd be underwater."

"We have some footage from the first Weaver's online camera," Walfang continued. "You may want to see it."

"Right. Upload it to me. Section one is too close for comfort."

Pollux peered into the doorway again. Doctor Mellert was watching a video on her computer. A shaky, dark, rapidy enlarging image, replayed over and over. He pulled away as she turned back to the intercom.

"Someone in your department has digital animation skills and a sense of humor, Walfang," she said. "I hope it isn't you."

"I assure you, that's what the missile recorded."

Doctor Mellert snorted.

After a few moments of silence, Walfang said, "At any rate, I respectfully request permission to put the station on high alert."

"Of course, Walfang. Lock us down. Only try not to interfere too much with the authorized cargo shipments, will you? We're on a tight schedule."

Pollux didn't hesitate any longer. If they were going to high alert status, this might be his only chance to get outside. He darted past as Mellert added, "And send out the drones. I want any wreckage you can salvage from that…thing. Including bodies."

* * *

There was no up, no down, nothing but the unending cold and the churning maelstrom of bubbles, fire and shrapnel around him. Then he felt a squeeze at his shoulders, and there was suddenly an up again, and the flotation packs in his body suit were pulling him that way.

Thoma had been born by the sea and was well schooled in the ways of water. He had instinctively held his breath from the moment the wave had torn through the cargo space. Even so, he was nearly forced to let go of his lungful of stale, depleted air before he reached the surface. The body suit had kept him mostly dry and warm, but the cold water was like a thousand knives on the bare skin of his head and hands.

He surfaced near a large black tear-shaped structure like a buoy. A catwalk ran around its circumference just above the level of the waves, and Seth struggled, his numb hands fumbling to grasp, before finally managing to pull himself up onto the ledge. Heat radiated from the thing and Seth gratefully pressed himself against it, the numbness beginning to fade already from his cold-burning skin.

Behind him he heard splashing and a choking gasp. He turned to see a hand flailing from the ocean's surface, and he seized it and pulled. Mel emerged from the depths, surprisingly heavy, and Seth realized that she still had her tool bag, now weighed down with water, its shoulder strap twisted around her neck. If not for the flotation packs in her bodysuit, it would have dragged her to the ocean floor.

When Seth had untangled the strap from her neck, and she had coughed up a considerable amount of seawater, he helped her to her feet, leaning with her against the warm wall of the buoy.

After a moment, Mel turned around to place her back to the wall, staring around them. Seth followed her gaze.

All around them, the dark, undulating ocean stretched to the horizon. There was nothing, nothing but ice and water and stars as far as the eye could see. They were…nowhere.

Seth forced a confident note into his voice. "Don't worry. They'll be fine, and they're going to find us soon. And if they don't, I'm sure someone else will."

"Actually," Mel said, her voice still hoarse from coughing up cold seawater, "I was just thinking how pleasant it is to be out in the fresh air again."

Seth wished he felt some similar comfort. Seth had been raised in the palace court and thoroughly civilized and educated, Thoma had run wild among the islands, but both of them had been children of warm climates. He had no idea what to do with this air that was relentlessly, mercilessly trying to turn his skin into frozen raw meat, or the ice that had instantly formed on his wet hair and eyebrows.

As they huddled there, another form emerged from the water, further away. Seth knew he ought to be ashamed of the feeling of disappointment that filled him, but there was only one person who wore a white body suit on the ship, and Dumas was lowest on the list of people Seth was desperately hoping had survived.

As he was trying to build up the courage to jump back into the freezing tide and help the newcomer swim to them, Dumas shot up out of the surf and, a hand on his energy pack, levitated over the waves to land beside them.

"Huh," Seth said. "Now, why didn't I think of doing that?"

* * *

The door was cold as death. Pollux put his hand against it and felt the chill soak into him. He turned the knob and opened the door into night.

The ice of Sei Station Island glowed white under the halogen lamps. Outside the ring of light lay darkness. Outside the darkness lay the sea. What lay beyond the sea, Pollux would learn. Death was an adventure, an investigation, a discovery.

Pollux stepped away from Sei Station, closing the door behind him, and moved into the light.

A hand seized his shoulder, and he gasped. One of the security guards had him. "Where are you headed?" the man growled. His snow mask hid his features, making him no more than another of the machines that littered the island.

Pollux twisted like a hooked fish, but the man dragged him back inside the door. He pushed back the snow mask to reveal a hard, craggy face and bristling moustache.

"You," the man said accusingly. "You called Delvan Winter, didn't you? In the middle of the night? You asked for help."

Pollux stared in horror. Nobody knew about that, nobody but Castor, and surely Castor would not have betrayed him?

"Winter sent me," the guard said. "The name's Cooks. And I'm here to help you."

* * *

Soreto steered the pod around one of the many icebergs cluttering the area. She noticed a sharply fractured notch in one of them, and wondered if it had been one of the ones she hit during the escape. It might be a clue that they were nearing the right place.

The pod was more maneuverable and quicker than the crippled ship had been, and it had better visibility, being little more than a transparent bubble with a frame and engine. Since the scanning system in the pod was rudimentary at best, the wide field of vision was welcome, however exposed and vulnerable it made her feel. They had few search tools apart from actual vision and intuition, and so far neither had provided results. They were randomly ranging through a maze of ice that changed with every variation of wind and current. Any survivors would be depending on their energy packs to keep them warm and alive, and every minute that passed drained those packs further. When the energy was drained, the body suits only provided minor insulation, nowhere near enough to fend off the Antarctic ocean's chill.

"There's something ahead," Tina said, and Soreto enhanced the scanner image.

"It's one of the climate regulators," Soreto said. "If we were too near that, it may have been why we were attacked." Hopefully she scanned the surface further, but there was no floating rubble—or, more importantly, bodies—to be seen. And since there were probably defenses to detect invaders underwater as well as in the air, Soreto let the pod sink to just above the ocean floor.

The rocky bottom was scored and gouged by the movements of the icebergs. Soreto's eyes were frequently caught by a flash of bright color or movement in the pod's floodlights, to realize a moment later that it was only a sea star, ice jelly, or another of the creatures that had somehow adapted to live in this impossibly cold and cruel sea.

They continued the search, crossing and re-crossing the area where the destruction must have taken place, long after any hope must be given up that the energy packs would still be sustaining life. They found not the smallest piece of wreckage. It was as if the wreck had never happened.

Suddenly Tina seized Soreto's arm. "There!" she pointed. In the gloom of the night sea, light beams were moving across the ocean floor.

Against all reason, Soreto's heart leaped, and she turned the pod toward the lights.

Drawing closer, she slowed. Whoever was moving the lights showed no reaction to their approach. Not whoever, she suddenly realized. Whatever. At first she thought the things were some strange, giant crustacean of which she had never heard. Then, for another brief moment of excitement, she thought they might be the Homonculoid robots, Bubble and Squeak.

But these machines were different. The bodies were dark, long and sleek with squared corners, like floating coffins. A mass of limbs and sensors dangled from beneath them, as well as the adjustable floodlights that were now raking the ocean floor. Two or three of the things were clustered together over an angular shape, like crabs picking over the carcass of a dead fish. They rose, straining to lift the object together, and Soreto cried out as she recognized it.

It was one of the sensor panels that had been stored in the cargo space.

Soreto accelerated toward the surface, but there was nothing floating above the wreckage. "Tina, can you get a reading on the current?" she asked. "We may be able to calculate where—"

"Soreto?" said Tina. Soreto looked, saw Tina was looking backward, and twisted around. Behind the pod were three of the coffin-shaped robots. She frowned and changed course.

The things turned to follow.

"Get that current reading," she ordered Tina. "Quickly!"

As soon as Soreto had the information, she turned to follow the current. Their pursuers seemed to be gaining on them, so Soreto increased the speed as Tina scanned for floating objects. There was nothing but ice.

Then they came in range of the climate regulator again, and Soreto dove, slipping into the ice field once more.

Darting and weaving between the icebergs, Soreto managed to put a little space between them and their pursuers, but she knew she could not keep it up. The pod was small and fragile, and one miscalculation might spell the end. Still, they might buy enough time to get back to the—

With a shout of anger, Soreto changed course.

"What?" Tina asked.

"I almost led them back to the ship. What am I thinking?" Soreto dove to the floor again. Only the largest icebergs stretched to this depth, and she was able to bring the pod to full speed. The following machines stayed on their trail, slowing drawing nearer. A light flared on the sensor panel.

"They've fired at us!" Tina cried.

Once more Soreto ascended to dodge around the icebergs. The missile impacted on the ice, sending shards shooting through the water in all directions. As the pod neared the continent, though, the icebergs were becoming fewer, and the surface was frozen, leaving them racing through an endless cathedral of ice. There were still projections and crevices, and Soreto dodged and wove her way through them as skillfully as she could. Still, the machines gained.

There was another flash. Another missile had been fired.

There was nothing to dodge behind this time.

Desperately, Soreto pulled the pod into a climb, heading though a dark crevice in the ice that got narrower and narrower.

Then it ended altogether.

The pod hit the ice and smashed though it, sailing out of the ocean to hang in the sky. They were airborne.

Briefly.

The engines died, the ice came up to meet them, and a spiderweb of cracks shot through the transparent hull. The pod bounced, skidded and slid to a stop.

"Tina!" Are you all right?" Soreto asked as soon as she had caught her breath.

"I'm fine," Tina said. "Are you-?"

Soreto had no new injuries, though she thought two crashes in one day were probably all she could cope with.

The pod engine would not restart. Even if Soreto had known what was wrong with it, she had nothing to fix it with. Even the tiny medical scanner had been left back aboard the ship with Hasmodai and Belle.

Soreto pulled out her voicelink and tried calling Hasmodai, but no answer came. If her link was working, and they were in range, she supposed Hasmodai's link must have been broken in the wreck of the ship. She tried to link to the ship itself, but again there was no response, and no response came as she called in turn on Agi, Dumas, Mel, Tarlant, and Seth.

All was silence but the moaning wind.

Soreto was one of the handful of people on Earth who knew—knew as hard fact, not as an article of faith—that Death was not the end. She had lost count of how many lifetimes she had knowingly returned, and knew that she had probably experienced many forgotten lifetimes before their new knowledge of the zone had let them control and remember their rebirths.

The souls of the lost still existed, and were still connected with hers. Agi, who had led them so long and well, strong, kind and determined. Mel, her dearest friend for so many years. Noble Seth, spirited Tarlant. Dumas…under the layers of arrogance and cruelty he used to hide his own pain, she had sensed his wounded spirit trying so hard to heal and grow.

They would be back, so long as there was a world to come back to. Soreto might meet them again. They might even all be together once more. But never in the way they had been in these many past lifetimes, never again in this lifetime where she had learned to love them all so dearly.

In this lifetime, this now, Soreto would have to go on without them.

She put her face in her hands and wept.


	11. Chap 11: The Burden and the Transience

Chapter 11 : The Burden and the Transience

It was unfair, Dumas thought, that the universe should make its own rescue so complicated. Once again he was coming up short in the number of souls he needed to relocate.

He thought there was a good chance that those in the ship's control room might have survived, because that part of the ship was designed to detach from the body in disastrous circumstances. His sister Tina had been in there.

If she had not survived, he had no more interest in saving the universe. Let it all fall down. He owed the rest of creation nothing.

Agi had almost certainly been killed, and that was a serious inconvenience. Dumas had him under control, and the others followed his lead. If he was gone, and if those in the cockpit had survived, he might be able to make use of Soreto in his place. He thought it would still be possible to negate the false memories he had planted in her at her reawakening. It was even possible she had already rejected them on her own. She certainly gave the impression lately of someone putting themselves through mental hell.

Not that she didn't deserve it. All these scientists were incorrigible. Even now, when they were stranded with little hope of rescue, when they had to keep turning themselves like meat on a spit to keep from terminal frostbite, while two worlds steadily marched on toward destruction, Mel had her scanner out of the tool bag and was taking readings.

"S-s-so, what is this thing?" Seth's teeth were chattering. His energy pack must be running low again. They were built to recharge from ambient forces, including sunlight, wind, and even body heat and motion, but they were not designed for the kind of constant drain this hostile environment was putting on them. If Dumas had known where they would end up, he'd have brought them all astro grade packs like his own, rather than the standard military issue. And Mel didn't even have one of those, she was wearing one of their own jury-rigged homemade packs out of sentimentality. Dumas shot another charge of energy from his own pack into each of theirs.

"This is one of the climate regulators," Mel said, looking up at the enormous black buoy. "It helps keep the ice caps frozen."

"It's doing a g-good job. So how c-come it f-feels warm?" Seth asked. "N-n-not that I'm complaining."

"I imagine it radiates just enough heat to keep it from being encased in ice. It appears to work by pulling energy from the sea and air, but only from outside a certain radius. Then it converts and transmits the gathered energy in a focused burst, probably via satellite to a capacitor somewhere. The design is astounding. Almost like…" she shook her head. "Anyway, I ought to be able to increase the heat output."

"P-please do."

Mel puttered with the scanner a bit longer. "There's a slight problem. It's lined with explosives."

"What? That's crazy! We're s-sitting on a big bomb?"

"No, they're just small charges. It looks like they're primed to go off when the casing is opened, and to fuse the internal components. Probably to keep anyone from tampering with the heat collectors or stealing their designs. There is a way to deactivate the system, but it's in a maintenance hatch at the bottom of the collector. Under the water line."

Seth swore.

At first Dumas didn't understand when Mel rummaged in her tool bag, and handed him a cutting beam, a glowlamp, and a scanner. Then it penetrated.

"No," he said firmly. "I wouldn't even know what to do."

"This body is far too old to go in that water again," Mel said sternly. "And your body suit and energy pack are much better than Seth's. The sooner you go, the sooner you can warm up when you get back."

Dumas looked down at the icy, cold, dark water. He looked into Mel's icy, cold, dark eyes.

She gave him the look that Gherta Hawksbee must have used to freeze the blood of unruly interns and graduate students for the last thirty years.

As Dumas dropped into the frozen sea, he felt a heavy weight he had not realized he carried lift from a conscience he hadn't known he possessed.

Dumas no longer felt any guilt, shame, remorse, responsibility or even pity for the scientist Mel.

* * *

Leaving the pod had been the hard part. Broken and nonfunctioning as it was, it still represented shelter, and that was something that could preserve their lives. But there was no point in remaining with it. They would only run out of supplies and energy more slowly, and eventually be stranded there.

The pod was stocked with some survival gear. After picking and choosing what would be useful and what they could reasonably carry between them, Tina and Soreto had a case of nutrient blocks, a self-filling canteen each, a heat beam, a lamp. and a generous roll of thermal cloth, intended for use as a tent or blanket. They cut wide strips from this to wrap their heads and hands against the cold. There were also four spare energy packs, and they took them all.

They walked over the ice shelf without words. The only rational choices open to them seemed to be either to find one of the scientific bases on Antarctica and request help, or to walk toward the sea and hope that Hasmodai and Belle had surfaced and approached the coast somewhere, or that Soreto's voicelink would work if they were nearer the ship's location.

While the scientific base was the most logical choice, they didn't know where to find one, and Soreto knew that Tina shared her unspoken hope that near the coast, they might find someone who had made it to shore. So they walked to the sea. And when they had gone as close to the edge of the thinning ice as they dared, they walked along it.

Soreto cursed herself for not thinking to fly over the ice field in the escape pod during the search. Perhaps someone had survived and climbed onto the ice.

The sun finally came up. Its rays were weak and gave no warmth or comfort, but they could see. There was little to see, though, and Soreto's eyes soon became dazzled and heavy from the glare of the snow.

They kept on, barely pausing for a rest, and when they did rest, they still could not stop looking out to sea.

When the sky began to darken again after a paltry eight hours, they headed inland. It was dark again before they left the ice and climbed onto snow-covered rock. They found a hollow, sheltered by the wind, and Soreto turned the heat beam on a boulder until it glowed red-hot, radiating its warmth into the hollow like a small furnace.

"I'll take the first watch," Soreto said.

Tina curled up under the remainder of the thermal cloth and fell instantly into an exhausted sleep. Soreto stood by the hot boulder, looking into the surrounding darkness. She was exhausted, too, so tired she could barely keep from falling over. But she doubted she could sleep.

She looked up to the stars, but these constellations were unknown to her. The Pleiades, far beyond which lay their home planet of Greecia, could not be seen in this sky.

Some of the indigenous people of America had legends that claimed the Pleiades were seven disobedient children, who had been sent to dance eternally in the heavens as punishment. It had seemed painfully apt.

Soreto heard the tale while living in America. One of her host families had emigrated there, and it had not been easy to reunite with the group afterward. Soreto remembered being a tiny girl in a wild land, remembered chasing, laughing, after a yellow puppy, and hiding under her bed when the sky blackened, covering her ears to block out the thunder of wings and the blast of shotguns.

The passenger pigeons had descended on their settlement like a thundercloud, filling the air with their thousands of bodies, blotting out the sun, stripping the fields clean like feathered locusts, and covering everything with their filthy guano.

If you had told the people blasting into the flock with their guns and killing pigeons by the hundreds that the birds would soon vanish from the face of the earth, anyone who actually believed would probably have been pleased.

And now the passenger pigeons were gone.

And people missed them.

And they were sorry.

"Soreto?"

Tina was sitting up and looking at her worriedly, and Soreto realized that tears were running down her face again, freezing on her cheeks and eyelashes and the cloth wrappings. And since Soreto was tired, too tired to bear the burden alone any longer, she spoke.

"We fought the Enma so hard when we were searching for you," she said. "Year after year. Lifetime after lifetime. It always found us, always came after us, always tried to set things back in balance. But now it's nowhere.

"What if there is no Enma any more? All those times we fought it-what if we destroyed it, wounded it so badly that it couldn't recover? What if everything that's happening in the Zone is happening because the Enma is gone? And there's no way to bring it back? And nothing we do…nothing…will make any difference?"

Tina looked up for a long time at the same stars that gave Soreto no reassurance. Then she looked at Soreto and smiled. "I don't think that's possible."

There was such serenity in her clear eyes that Soreto nearly felt comforted. She managed a shaky smile in return. "Thanks," she said. "You go back to sleep now."

Tina was no scientist. She had never studied the Enma or the Zone. Of all of them, she probably knew the least about any of this.

But then, Tina had actually visited the land of death.

Maybe she knew what she was talking about.

* * *

Bob Cooks had been a terrific reporter. His grandson had inherited his energy, his curiosity, his unerring instinct for investigation and love of mystery.

But not his talent for writing.

And so, Nguyen Cooks had entered the police force as a detective, rising rapidly through the ranks to be promoted to the national branch of the Law Enforcement Agency.

And then had come Flo.

Cooks had spent a life fascinated by his grandfather's unsolved mystery and the photo that went with it, and the pretty little white-haired girl reminded him of the child in the photograph.

Of course, he didn't believe at the time there was any connection. He asked to take the case, hoping to return the child home, but knowing that cases where pretty little girls go missing usually ended in bitter, sordid, soul-hardening ways.

Then he had come to hear of the missing boy Thomas from Wattford. Two missing white-haired children who resembled figures from the photo? Coincidence. Maybe.

Then he learned of Kalie from West Silies. And Teo from Otorad. He continued searching, investigating, gathering evidence, until at last he had found the central figure in the photograph, the boy with the air of authority and the world-weary eyes. Ian Cole.

And then he had finally met Ian Cole, come face to face with him…and the boy had seen the photo, smiled, and mentioned his grandfather's name. Every last shred of doubt was blown out of Cooks's heart.

The investigation led him to Ketplaque Island and Kuril Island, brought him into confrontation with the GED group, where he had seen things he couldn't even begin to explain, let alone present as evidence. Only Alice Holingworth's intercession on his behalf had saved him from a serious reprimand.

Afterward, the children had all drifted home. Six months later, Cooks had taken a trip to Sanceli Island, wandering around casually until he managed to run across Ian Cole once more.

The boy had not even recognized him. And claimed he had never been to Kuril Island, when Cooks had tried to bring up the subject.

Cooks had the feeling he was doomed, like his grandfather, to have witnessed part of a mystery that would never be explained. He began collecting every bit of information he could on the lives of the returned children, the former members of GED, on other unusual children, and on all strange and unexplained phenomenon, desperate to some day find the key that would make everything make sense.

He began to be considered an eccentric on the force, and finally decided to retire early, both to protect his professional reputation, and to give himself the freedom to continue pursuing the strange and mysterious. He knew that if he could only be persistent, in time he must arrive at the answer.

And then he had run out of time, suddenly and unexpectedly.

And that's when Delvan Winter appeared in his office, with a plea for help from an uncanny child torn away from his home.

And Cooks had thought only: Well, the chance to do one last good thing.

"Cooks!"

"Yes Captain?" Captain Walfang was coming down the corridor.

Captain Walfang was all right. Most of the people at Sei Station were all right. They were scientists and technicians, mostly, intent on keeping the world climate under control, and on studying Antarctica, proud of their work and proud of their innovative company.

But this was no place for a child. Yes, Cooks had seen terrible things during his police career, and knew there were plenty of children who might have been better off even locked in this freezer, without friends, without school, without family or anyone who loved them. The Weaver twins weren't being abused. But they weren't being cared for, either.

He had had a chance to watch them, and it was clear that Pollux was suffering from some sort of extreme fear and anxiety. Cooks thought that the kid was either terrified of something real, or ought to be under the care of a psychologist, not left alone to wander a research station unsupervised. As for Castor, it might appear that he was being allowed to do exactly as he liked, but there was a look in his eyes…a pain, a longing, a far-from-home look.

Cooks had finally found a chance to talk to Pollux alone, and when the time came to escape, Pollux would be ready. And Cooks hoped to bring Castor along as well. He was sure that once they got to the South East Islands, the courts would be able to tie the twins up in enough bureaucratic red tape that Brightwater would never regain custody of them again. As for Cooks, he would probably be charged with kidnapping.

He wouldn't live to serve the sentence.

"You all right, Cooks?" the captain asked. "You looked tired. Are you getting enough sleep?"

"Sure, Captain," Cooks said. "Just having a little trouble adjusting to the weather down here.

Walfang nodded. "You'll get the hang of it. Anyway, I need you in the infirmary."

Cooks started to sweat. While he had used all his own, genuine background and identification, his health certificate had been forged.

"Uh, Captain, honestly, I'm fine, I just—"

"I need a guard in the infirmary," Captain Walfang clarified. "The drones pulled in a suspected terrorist. Guy in some sort of paramilitary uniform. Sad, really, he can't be more than seventeen or so. We think he may be the pilot from that unidentified aircraft that was shot down in yesterday's illegal flyover."

Cooks nodded. He couldn't imagine why anyone would be interested in sabotaging the system that kept their own planet alive, but the one lesson every decent cop learned early on was: people are nuts. "He's dangerous, then?"

Walfang shrugged. "Frankly, I don't think he'll live long enough to be dangerous, or to answer any questions. He was in the water too long, and if the hypothermia doesn't kill him, he's also lost a lot of blood, has some serious burns and some broken bones. Wonder if he thinks whatever he was trying to accomplish was worth it. In any case, I'm not taking any chances, not with the big demonstration coming up. I want two guards in the infirmary at all times."

Cooks headed down to the infirmary, wondering on the way what the world was coming to, and how in the heck he was going to smuggle two twins—one possibly unwilling—out of Antarctica.

The infirmary was another cramped little room, barely longer than the simple cot against its wall. When Cooks took his position next to the cot and saw the person lying in it, he realized that what remained of his life had all become a whole lot more complicated

The boy on the cot was Ian Cole.


	12. Chapter 12: Floating in Unending Space

Chapter 12: Floating in Unending Space

Soreto continued to stand watch, swaying on her feet. I ought to wake Tina, she thought. But Tina was sleeping so peacefully. And even moving to wake her felt as if it would require more energy than Soreto had left. Her body was made of lead, her mind of mud.

I ought to just lie down and sleep, she thought. What was she guarding against? There was nothing here that could harm them but the cold, and there was no keeping that away.

There was a noise of metal on rock, and Soreto snapped back into wakefulness. The sound came again, closer.

"Tina?" She pushed at Tina's shoulder, and the girl blinked awake slowly.

Soreto could hear more noises approaching. Chances were it was some night expedition from one of the research bases, maybe even someone who had seen them and was coming to their rescue. It might even be one of their lost companions.

But the dark, coffin-shaped robots from under the ocean were sill a horror in her memory, and she had no idea what else might be prowling the Antarctic wastes.

Then a nightmare lurched up over the rise—a swollen, bulbous, misshapen darkness with two glowing red eyes and the limbs of a spider.

"Tina, RUN!" Soreto ordered, turning to flee herself. She ran staggering over the ice and rocks, every gasping breath searing her lungs with cold. Ahead of her, Tina stumbled, and Soreto pulled her to her feet, shouting, "RUN!" once more and they ran on, Soreto trying to keep herself between the monster and the princess. It was too huge, too fast. It was almost on them.

"Soreto!"

Soreto's head twisted back, and she tripped, falling on the rocks, staggering back to her feet.

"Soreto!"

The huge black shape of the beast leaned over her, and from its maw a dark shadow dropped, and it seized her.

"Soreto!"

"Tarlant? TARLANT!" She grabbed him, hugged him so tightly her arms ached, and felt his arms around her. A moment later she felt the impact as Tina threw her arms around the both of them. "Tarlant!"

Against all hope, the land of death had opened once more, and given up one of its victims.

* * *

Mel continued to examine the climate regulator. Once the case had been opened, it had revealed itself to be even more interesting a device. Inside the tiny maintenance crawlspace, Dumas huddled, shivering. His energy pack had finally given out. He had been under the water so long, Mel had been afraid she'd sent him to his death. Still, with the regulator radiating heat at its current rate, Dumas's pack would be recharging itself quickly, and would soon return his body to its proper temperature.

"Are you sure you don't want to come in here? Just for a minute, till you warm up?" Seth asked.

"I'm sure," Mel said. She would rather have jumped in the ocean.

Still, even out on the catwalk, the increased warmth made survival less taxing, and her energy pack was beginning to charge itself slowly.

Now that they were no longer in imminent danger of freezing, thirst became the next torture and the next threat. It took very little energy to rehydrate when you were standing right over a reservoir like the Antarctic sea, but Mel had nothing in her energy pack to spare yet, and the ocean water was undrinkable in its natural state.

"This machine has a navigational readjustment system more sophisticated than anything I've seen in Earth technology before," she informed the others. "It has a propulsion unit that operates by magnetic field manipulation and is actuated by satellite positioning data."

"How nice for it," Dumas said through chattering teeth.

"You're being sarcastic, you must be feeling better." It was good that the young man was returning to his normal state, though she couldn't let him see her relief.

Mel had long forgiven Dumas for what he had done to her. It was not in her nature to hate or bear grudges. But she still felt unreasoning terror when he was near her, and she believed he would see any fear, any gentleness toward him as a weakness. He would try to exploit weakness. Dumas used people. And Mel refused to be used by Dumas again.

"What I'm saying," she interpreted for the non-educated, "is that the regulator stays in position by comparing its own programmed coordinates with its position as confirmed by a tracking satellite, and then by adjusting its location."

"So?" Dumas snarled.

"So…it can move?" Seth was quicker on the uptake, though, to be fair, his brain wasn't still half frozen.

Mel nodded. "Easily, either by changing the target coordinates or by altering the receivers to accept a signal of our own in place of the satellite's."

"Well, where do we want to go, then?" Seth asked. "Can you find anything on the scanner yet? Any sign of the others?"

Mel shook her head. "Its range is too short." She had tried repeatedly. "We should head for the shore and search from there."

"Randomly search Antarctica for survivors? No." Dumas was recovering quickly. "The only sensible course of action right now is to return to the Rugen Institute as quickly as possible. How fast can this thing move?"

"Very slowly," said Mel reluctantly, "as long as it's in the water." Her heart sank.

Dumas fixed his eyes on her. "Is there another option?"

"I might be able to adjust the magnetic pulse engines and give it hovering flight capability," she admitted.

And to do that, she would have to go into the crawlspace.

* * *

They slept that night, the three huddled under one blanket, their arms wrapped around each other as the robots warmed them and watched over them.

Tarlant had food, medical supplies, tools and other useful equipment. They traded stories in the morning as Tarlant applied healing biogel to Soreto's battered face.

After the wreck, Tarlant had regained consciousness lying on the shore, on a slab of sensor panel, with several deep gashes across his chest and shoulder. Warm light was radiating down on him. The robots, Bubble and Squeak, had pulled him from the water and kept him warm. Other bits of cargo and wreckage had been brought up and lay upon the ice around him.

But no people. He was alone.

Without the robots to look after, he might have sunk into despair. But Squeak had three legs snapped off, and Bubble's carapace was cracked, and there was nobody to do anything about it but him.

Working on the robots had let him put off his grief and horror long enough for hope to revive in his soul, and when they were fixed, Tarlant linked them together into a single beast and loaded what little salvage was actually useful aboard their broad back. He reshaped the carapaces to make a shelter for himself to ride in, cut an eye slit out of an equipment pouch to wear as a hood and made mittens out of a chunk of his coat, and they set off along the shore, scanning for survivors.

Lifeform readings had proved useless. His first joy at discovering a strong life signal had been dashed when he reached it and found a colony of penguins. After chasing down a seal or two, Tarlant switched to scanning for energy signatures. Unfortunately, several of the local research installations and the climate regulators seemed to use a similar energy collection system. Finally, after being distracted twice by false leads, he had found the two cloth-wrapped figures, and heard Soreto's voice.

"I'm glad at least Hasmodai and Belle are okay, too," Tarlan said. "Maybe we'll find the others yet!"

"Let's hope. We left the escape pod a day's walk in that direction," Soreto said. "If anyone can fix it, you can, Tarlant."

"Wrecked the ship, then wrecked the pod," Tarlant said. "Tell me, Soreto, back home in Nohedge—have you applied for your driver's license yet?"

It actually got a laugh out of her. She probably needed it.

The robots could not carry all three of them, but it was easy for Tarlant to put together a makeshift sledge from some of the salvaged gear, and they set off back along the path the girls had taken, considerable faster than they could have walked.

After a little more than an hour, the robots suddenly halted. The higher-pitched chirps of Squeak rippled through the air.

"What is it?" Soreto called.

"I think they're picking up something on the sensors. Go on, check it out."

The robots changed course and soon, from his vantage point on their backs, he saw something ahead. "I think there's someone walking on the ice!" Tarlant called.

There was someone, and as soon as they were near, Soreto jumped out of the sledge and ran to her.

It was Belle. She was wearing nothing but a bodysuit, stumbling along the ice with her hands tucked under her armpits

"Belle!" Soreto shouted. The girl barely reacted. Soreto seized her by the arm, dragging her toward the robots. "Tarlant, I think she's got some serious frostbite."

Belle sat numb and silent as they patched her up. Eventually she began to sob, which Tarlant took as a sign of returning life.

"Belle, how did you get here?" Soreto demanded. "Where's Hasmodai?"

"I used the escape pod. He's still on the ship," Belle sniffled.

"You left him alone, with a head injury, and no escape pod?"

"I had to find Ian!" Belle wailed.

For a moment, Tarlant honestly believed Soreto was going to strike the girl. Instead, she turned with a cry and ran.

"Soreto?" Leaving Belle to Tina's care, Tarlant ran after Soreto. She was going incredibly fast—she must be using the suit's motion enhancement, despite the need to conserve power. Tarlant willed his own suit into action, trying to keep pace.

The ice ended in something like a cliff. Soreto stopped at the edge, wildly looking over, then ran along it, stopping again.

"Where are you going?" Tarlant shouted, and she whirled to face him.

"I'm trying to find where that…that STUPID CHILD left the escape pod!"

That made sense, at least. Tarlant joined the search. In the end, he saw it first, at the base of the cliff. Calling for Soreto, he jumped down from one ledge to the next to land beside it.

The pod's hatch had been left open. It was half submerged, partly encased in ice, and the hull was cracked. Soreto struck it with her fist with a scream of rage and frustration. Then she turned to him.

"Tarlant, how fast can you get this thing in working order?"

He looked at it doubtfully. Even if there was no unseen damage, it would be tricky to get the pod out of the ice and where he could work on it. The shattered hull might take hours to fuse, and from what he could see of the energy meters, it was nearly drained of power. Belle had been lucky to make it to shore. He estimated a day, at least.

Looking at Soreto's worried face, he knew she didn't want to wait that long. Neither did he.

"Do you know exactly where the ship is?" he asked.

"I remember the coordinates."

I'll send one of the robots to check on Hasmodai. At least we'll know if he's okay."

They ascended again in a series of leaps, to find that Tina had led Belle and the robots after them. It took fifteen minutes for Tarlant to separate the robots into individual machines again. Then he sent Bubble into the water.

In a moment, Squeak began projecting the images Bubble transmitted back. They watched impatiently as the robot made its way across the rocky ocean floor, passing stones and seals and ice chunks. Schools of fish appeared, scattered, and disappeared from the projection. By the time the robot reached the ice fields, Tarlant's hands were clenched into fists. Soreto paced restlessly back and forth.

"There it is!" Tarlant said. The remains of the ship had appeared in the projection, appearing to be at quite a distance. Slowly it grew larger.

"What are those?" Tarlant asked. Around the ship, running sensor-covered claw hands over it, were some sort of submersible robot, black and elongated.

I'm not sure, but they're dangerous," Soreto said. "Can Bubble zoom in on the image without getting any closer?"

The image stopped moving, and then magnified. The ship's cockpit was lying on the ocean floor, tilted up against a large boulder. It looked empty, abandoned.

Then Belle screamed and Tina gasped, covering her mouth. Something dark floated past the viewscreen. Something like an empty suit, whose occupant had left it.

"Tarlant, can Bubble scan the ship for life forms?" Soreto asked, her voice level and strained.

Tarlant ran the scan. Twice.

"Nothing." Among all of them, Hasmodai had been his closest friend.

Soreto stood, turning her back to walk away a short distance. "Bring back Bubble, Tarlant. We can't risk losing the robot any longer."

"But…but…you can't just LEAVE him there!" Belle protested.

You did. Tarlant couldn't speak such a cruel truth, but it hovered unspoken in the air.

Soreto stood silent for a while, her backs to them. She had shared Hasmodai's love of poetry and literature, Tarlant remembered.

Without turning to look at them, Soreto said, "When the robot's back, see what you can do about getting that pod back in working order. We came to Antarctica for a reason, and we need to carry on with the mission. There's nothing more we can do for Hasmodai."


	13. Chapter 13: Bei Nacht

Chapter 13: Bei Nacht

Night, when the ocean rocks me  
And soft starlight  
Lies upon its broad waves,  
Then I free myself completely  
From all endeavors and all loves,  
And stand still and simply breathe.  
Alone, alone, rocked by a sea  
That lies cold and silent with a thousand lights.

Then I must think of my friends,  
And sink my gaze into theirs,  
And ask each, silent and alone,  
"Are you still mine?  
Is my suffering a suffering to you, my death a death?  
Do you feel of my love, my misery,  
Even a breath, even an echo?"

And the sea quietly blinks and rocks,  
And smiles: no.  
And from nowhere comes any answer or greeting.  
-Herman Hesse

He was alone.

Abandoned.

Forsaken.

Hasmodai sat aboard the remains of Dumas's ship as the water rose. Eventually it would cover him. A hundred years from now, someone might come across the wreck, and find his preserved, frozen corpse, still sitting here, gazing in wonder upon the Atalanta.

After thoroughly savoring the romantic tragedy of this scenario, Hasmodai rose slowly, so as not to send his wounded head spinning, and began to search the cockpit.

Dumas's craft, however versatile, was, after all, a spaceship. Though Greecia had advanced matter transference to the point where travel was practically instantaneous, even between galaxies, the point of a spaceship was that it spent time in space, and therefore required certain maintenance and safety equipment.

Before long he found a locker under the pilot's dashboard. It opened into a long drawer.

Lying across the top of the drawer were three spacesuits.

It was difficult and painful to pull on the suit in his injured condition, but the worst moment came after he had removed one of his boots, lost his balance, and put his foot down in the water. If he had actually felt any temptation at all to live out the poetic fantasy of going down with the ship, that murderous cold would have changed his mind. Any romance in the situation would have vanished with the first lungful of salty slush.

Once the suit was on, he pulled on the gauntlets and activated the seal, then lay in the water to test it. The suit, powered by five astro-grade energy packs and designed to provide air and warmth in the gelid vacuum of space, could take anything the Antarctic sea could throw at it.

Pushing aside the extra space suits, Hasmodai took the emergency tool bag from the drawer. He found Hesma's old scanner in a corner, under water, but still working. He was glad it hadn't broken. Like the old energy packs, it had capabilities and settings that had served them well, and were not to be found in standard equipment. Who but they had ever had a cause to register the waveform of Orsel?

The leaking hatch was caused by an actual warping of the entire hull, and was beyond his ability to repair. Possibly Tarlant or Mel could have managed something, but Hasmodai was a theorist and researcher, not a mechanic. Yet again, he was useless.

He returned to sit looking at the Atalanta, and sighed. He had always felt a strange fascination for the mystery of the lost ship. When Hasmodai was a child, he had dreamed of being a space explorer and searching for the Atalanta. That dream had led him to a constantly expanding fascination with science, and eventually to the career he had chosen.

It seemed like fate that he was here looking at this ship.

Was there really any point in staying on the foundering spacecraft? If only his voicelink hadn't been smashed in the wreck. Hasmodai tried activating the ship's communications system, but it was as dead as the sensor array. The few remaining systems that still worked showed flickering lights on the control panel, and occasionally one winked out. The ship was dying.

How long should he wait?

What if they never made it back here?

And if they did…what possible use was he to them, without his sensor equipment and computers and data?

When the water reached his chest, Hasmodai made a decision. He plugged a data crystal into the socket on the control panel and started recording. "Soreto, or whoever makes it back, it's Hasmodai. Belle has taken the pod to search for her brother. The ship is going under. I've got one of the spacesuits—there are two more, you may need them—and…and…and I'm going to investigate the Atalanta."

He turned the recorder off, leaving the crystal in the socket. Even if the entire ship went dead, they should find it and be able to activate it.

He strapped the tool pouch around his waist for ballast, slipping the scanner in with it. Then he opened the hatch. The rush of incoming water swamped the cockpit, sending every bit of loose flotsam swirling. The ship sank to the ocean floor and settled crookedly on a boulder.

When the turbulence had stilled, Hasmodai hoisted himself weightlessly out of the hatch, closing it behind him.

The Atalanta lay before him.

What was the point of a scientist, if not to investigate the riddles of the universe?

Hasmodai put a hand on his energy pack and propelled himself toward mystery.

* * *

Agi followed Dumas into the Rugen Institute. His mind was still confused with newly-reawakened memories, his heart still filled with rage. He had no idea why Dumas had demanded to speak to him separately, unless it was to exact some sort of revenge for that punch to the jaw. Agi's knuckles still stung from the impact.

They entered a small meeting room, and Dumas put his hands in his pockets and slouched against the wall. Just like a surly teenager.

Which he was, of course. Agi needed to remember that, and to remember that he himself was no longer a mere sixteen-year-old boy. He took a deep breath and let his anger fade.

"You had something to say to me?"

"Have a seat."

Agi sat at the table and waited.

After a few minutes, Dumas said, "You remember when I last left Earth."

"Yes."

"You remember that your preserved Greecian bodies were dropped from the ship."

"Yes."

"You remember that they were destroyed. The capsules smashed. You remember I prevented your return to Greecia."

"Yes." Agi wondered what the point of this was, whether Dumas was simply trying to make him angry again. He remained perfectly calm.

"You remember that the capsules were actually not damaged."

Agi was silent. He remembered that, too. But-

"You remember that I promised to return your preserved bodies to Greecia and send a ship for anyone who wished to return to them."

"I...I..." He did remember that. His brow creased as he tried to sort out the contradiction in his own mind.

Dumas smiled, as if he had won some sort of contest of wills.

"The smashed capsules were an implanted memory. The rest of your people share it with you, and unless their memory is challenged, they will go on remembering that. There have been one or two other alterations made to their memories. But your own memory has been left otherwise untouched. "

Agi felt his resolve to stay calm wavering. "Why? What was the point?"

"I made you and your people a promise," Dumas said. "It was a lie. While the capsules were intact, the bodies within were too damaged to preserve. I take full responsibility for the deaths of your bodies. Under the circumstances, I thought it best your people not remember a lie I told, and a promise I failed to keep. It was better they simply know their bodies were destroyed, and that I left them in exile."

Agi stood and stared into Dumas's eyes. "You changed our memories…you edited our brains…so we wouldn't remember you broke a promise." Calm was becoming harder to maintain.

"Yes." Dumas didn't flinch away from Agi's stare, and his eyes were hard and cold. Agi turned to leave.

"Before you go," Dumas said as Agi put his hand on the doorknob, "you may be interested in how we came up with our solution to this Orsel problem." He held up a data record. "Since there was almost nobody left on Greecia studying the Zone, we searched through the work of the world's most prominent expert on the subject and found this."

He activated the record. Agi felt the blood drain from his face.

"As the conversation has been interpreted for me, this is the record of a meeting during which a team of very distinguished, very brilliant scientists discuss whether a soul, sent from one world to another world's zone, might cause an effect strangely like the one that has actually occurred. Their leader—oh, by the way, it's you—is the one who suggests that reversing the process might reverse such an effect."

Agi did not speak.

"You knew this might happen. And you did it anyway."

"That theory. It was based on concepts about the Zone which we no longer—"

"Yes, yes, I've seen the record," Dumas said. "How you talked them out of the idea that abusing the spirit portal might have disastrous repercussions. I'm not interested in your excuses, or your explanations, or even your guilty confessions. All I care about is that the damage is repaired.

"Tina wishes to remain on Earth and live her life as Helga, so I am giving you a chance. I want you to find another solution. I want the same thing you all want. Consider it a favor that I've overwritten that meeting in your colleagues' minds with false memories."

"They deserve to know the truth," Agi said in a low voice.

"No doubt they do," said Dumas. "No doubt they deserve to know they destroyed our worlds deliberately instead of in ignorance. But it might make them question your leadership, or waste time in self-recrimination, and we have no time for that. They need you to lead them. They will have to work hard and work fast, because if you can't lead them to a solution, then you must lead them through the Zone. You may go now."

Agi turned away, his mind in turmoil and his heart heavy. Once again he paused, hand on the doorknob, and looked back at Dumas.

"Dumas. You said there were new bodies waiting for them all on Greecia."

"I did say that." Dumas's mouth stretched into a tight, humorless smile. "It's harder to believe, isn't it, when you know I've already lied once."

* * *

The young terrorist lay on the slab like a corpse. It seemed to Kahale Baldwin that an inordinate amount of the station's energy resources were being wasted trying to revive a dangerous felon from the brink of death.

"When can he be questioned?" Baldwin demanded.

"Not till he's fully conscious, anyway," said one of the exhausted med techs who had been working for hours keeping the scoundrel alive. "He seems to drift in and out, and his body temperature hasn't stabilized."

"Well, let me know the minute he's capable of talking," Baldwin ordered. He could see that the boy's eyes were partly open, just to narrow slits, and Baldwin suspected he could hear and understand everything perfectly.

"Do you hear that, young man?" Baldwin said loudly. "Either stop faking and answer questions, or die and get it over with." The boy's effects were on a nearby table. The uniform was free of insignia or identifying marks, and was made of a very strange, pliable fabric. The boots seemed molded in a solid piece from some sort of polymer.

There was also a belt with a metallic canister attached to it. "Has the bomb squad looked at that yet?" Without waiting for an answer, Baldwin marched to his office and punched Captain Walfang's extension on the intercom.

"Walfang!"

"Yes, sir."

"What's the security situation?"

"As well as can be expected, considering we're letting cargo ships and VIPs run amok all over the area."

"I don't like that terrorist in the infirmary."

"He probably doesn't like you either, sir."

Baldwin left a long and dangerous pause in the conversation. "Captain, are you attempting to be funny?"

"Sorry, sir."

"I want him out of here. Send him off on one of those cargo boats you keep complaining about."

"The med techs say—"

"I don't care! He's a threat. And have your explosives people look at that…thing on his belt."

"Sir—"

Baldwin shut off the intercom.

The big demonstration of Castor Weaver's new energy generator was just a couple of days away. Brightwater company executives and major shareholders were beginning to arrive already, and even some politicians and heads of state were making their way all the way to Antarctica for the occasion. Baldwin suspected that most of the politicians were more interested in a photo opportunity with a penguin than in a new and exciting revolution in power generation.

It was a triumph for Brightwater. And he, Kahale Baldwin, had no part in it. Even if Baldwin had been satisfied with reflected glory, Doctor Mellert was absorbing all that, with her hand-shaking and tour-guiding, and introducing her truculent little protégé to all the arriving dignitaries.

Baldwin had a bad feeling about it all, anyway. Several parts of the brat's infernal device hadn't even arrived yet, and it would apparently not be tested before the actual demonstration. Chances were it would be a colossal disaster, and while Baldwin had no stake in the glory of a success, he was fairly sure he'd be handed an enormous slice of any failure. Nobody even understood how the thing worked. All the brat would say was some nonsense about channeling energy from an alternate dimension.

The intercom beeped, and he hit the button. "Yes, Baldwin."

"Uh, Mr. Baldwin, this is Murray from maintenance? We went out to look at that malfunctioning regulator, you remember? The energy output sank, and the temperature rose, and then it blipped out, you remember?"

"Yes," said Baldwin. "Did you repair it?"

"Uh, no."

"Why not?"

"Uh…it isn't there?"

"What do you mean, it isn't there? Did it sink?"

"It's not there, man. Hey, check your e-mail, I'm sending you a picture."

Baldwin checked. He stared. It couldn't be what he thought it was. It couldn't.

"And what it that supposed to be?" he asked, just in case.

"It's a picture from the internet, of a UFO that was sighted in Australia a couple of hours ago. Went right over a bunch of tourists with cameras. Looks familiar, huh? It's all over the news!"

"And how would you know that," Baldwin asked icily, "as you are under orders to have no contact with the outside world?"

After an awkward silence, Murray said, "Well you see, one of my guys has been seeing this girl who works on the cruise ship where all the guests are—"

"This is going in your personal file, Murray," Baldwin said grimly, and turned off the intercom. Then he turned it on again and buzzed Doctor Mellert's office. When she didn't answer, he tried her pager.

After repeated attempts, Doctor Mellert responded. Her voice was sharp and tense. "This had better be important Baldwin. I've got the director of the company here, and two U.S. Senators and a Ukrainian princess, and Castor is being completely unsociable, and three of the component discs still haven't even arrived yet. Is this a matter of life and death?"

"No, but I really think you ought—"

"Whatever it is, Baldwin, deal with it."

"But—"

"DEAL WITH IT." The intercom went dead.

Baldwin wondered how one dealt with a flyaway climate regulator.

As he pondered what to do, he had the sudden sense he was being watched. He looked up and saw a child standing in the doorway of his office. Pollux, the worthless twin.

"What do you want?"

"Is…is Doctor Mellert around?"

"No," Baldwin snapped. "She's busy. If you have a problem, bring it to me."

Instead of scurrying off as he usually did when Baldwin was gruff with him, the boy remained dithering in the hallway.

"What?" Baldwin finally demanded.

"Can I have a helicoptor?"

"You have enough toys."

"No, a real one." When Baldwin stared, he added nervously, "We have three or four, don't we?"

Baldwin's first and natural reaction would be refusal, of course. But it was so unlike Pollux to ask for anything, much less persist when he had been rebuffed, that it made Baldwin suspicious. In his experience, when children behaved out of character, it meant they were up to something they shouldn't be.

"What do you want a helicopter for?" he asked.

"I just…thought it might be fun to redesign the engine."

Was the worthless twin finally going to make himself useful? Of course, all the attention his brother was getting must be making him jealous. Finally, the boy was motivated. And what had Mellert said about giving creative types their freedom?

If Baldwin supported Pollux while Mellert was all tied up with Castor, then Pollux's successes would count in Baldwin's favor with the company executives.

And how much sweeter that would be if Castor's new invention failed and Mellert caught the blame.

"I'll arrange it with Captain Walfang," Baldwin promised. "If you need anything else, come to me first."

"Thanks," Pollux said, and disappeared. As Baldwin punched Captain Walfang's intercom number, he couldn't help staring again at the picture on his computer.

And he wondered.

* * *

He was aware of voices around him. Earnest, caring voices. Angry, intense voices. Businesslike, officious voices. None of them voices that he knew and cared for.

The faces flickered in and out as well. Strangers, in a strange, cramped room. One of them looked slightly familiar, even called him secretively by a name he recognized as his own. One of his own.

But the room and the faces and the voices kept fading to another scene, another place.

A silent shore by a dark sea. The waves lapped noiselessly at his feet. Behind him was nothing but mist. Over the ocean was nothing but mist. And the shore, the shore stretched on forever to either side.

I have failed, Agi thought. I am here because I have failed.

Nothing moved in the mist. Nothing moved along the shore. Silently the waves lapped at his feet. The water was cold, but not the biting cold of the Antarctic waters.

It was the soft, soothing, gentle cold of death.

This is just a metaphor, Agi thought. There is no sea, no shore, no mist. This is just my mind's way of coping with this reality, converting it to images I can understand.

To truly understand death for what it was itself, he must enter the dark waters.

Agi stepped forward.

A figure appeared before him, a massive, towering, ominous dark shape. As fearful as it was, as much as it made him tremble, it was a familiar presence. Here he had no defense against it, and wanted none.

"Yes," Agi said, smiling softly. "You've been waiting for me a very long time, haven't you?" He took another step forward.

A force drove him back.

"What is it?" Agi said.

The dark figure stood silent.

Agi stepped into the waters again, but the Enma blocked him once more.

Agi stared at the shadow before him. Hadn't the Enma tried to lure him and his companions to this place countless times? What was wrong now? Was he being punished for his transgressions? Was final peace to be denied to him? Was he barred forever from the land of death?

"What do you want from me?" he asked.

The shape seemed to recede. Figures appeared in the mist, familiar figures. Soreto. Hasmodai. Tarlant. Mel. Palza. Hesma.

His friends. Already dead, they were here waiting for him. He tried to step into the water, tried to join them, but was prevented again.

Agi looked at the figures again. They were not waiting for him. There was no greeting or welcome in their faces. They looked at him with that expectant, confident, waiting expression. The one he saw on their faces so often.

They were waiting for him to lead them.

"Is that what you want from me?" Agi asked. "You want me to lead them?"

The figures faded and vanished, the dark shadow of the Enma dwindled to nothing, and there was nothing but the shore and the sea again.

Agi did not try to step into the waves again. It would not be permitted. The Enma, it seemed, wanted all of them.

He had led his people to folly.

He had led them to disaster.

Now, it seemed, he must lead them to death.

But he would not go out and fetch them. He would not hunt them for the Enma. Sooner or later, they would come to him. Sooner or later, everyone fetched up here.

And here he would stay. Folding his legs beneath him, he sat.

He would wait for them, here, on this silent shore.


	14. Chapter 14 Widening Ripples

Chapter 14: Widening Ripples

The Atalanta was even more enormous than it had appeared from the wreck. Hasmodai sent a probe into it with the scanner, but if the ancient vessel had a matter transference system, it was deactivated, broken, unrecognizable or undetectable for some other reason. There seemed to be a number of hatches, some sealed over with ice or other encrustments. Hasmodai finally was forced to warm one of the smaller airlock hatches enough that the ice released when he activated it. The task nearly depleted his considerable energy reserves, but he was able to enter the airlock and seal it after him, and the inner hatch opened smoothly to admit him to the ship.

It was easy to forget the difference in scale between the people of Earth and those of Greecia until it was brought to your attention by comparison. The ceilings were vaulted, impossibly high, and though he had stepped from the airlock into what was clearly just a corridor around the outer rim of the Atalanta, it was more than wide enough for a pair of airliners to take off from, wingtip to wingtip.

The ship must have been beautiful once. Even now, dark, silent as a tomb, and everything covered by a rime of sparkling frost, it was breathtaking in its enormous majesty.

Hasmodai scanned, found the air was breathable, and unsealed his spacesuit, pushing back the transparent cowl to take in the surrounding scene more clearly. He started walking down the corridor, his footsteps echoing hollowly through the silence.

The outer wall was made entirely of tall, paned windows, shaped like those in a church, and a faint blue light filtered in from the ocean beyond. The sun must have risen at last. Hasmodai could see nothing outside, because the windows were covered with whorls and fractal patterns in frost. The sight reminded him of childhoods spent in the North, cold winters, Christmas mornings, things he had not experienced in Teo's lifetime. An old, old Christmas song came to his lips, to echo eerily through the emptiness, and he pulled one hand from its gauntlet and pressed it against the frosty window as Andrew Chaseman had loved to do, so many lifetimes ago.

But the frost did not melt away under the warmth of his hand as it had for Andrew, it seized him in its grip and tried to hold fast, and when he snatched the hand back, the skin was seared white with the cold.

Hasmodai walked on. The songs Andrew had loved the most were forgotten now, even in his own country.

Andrew Chaseman's life had been the hardest one to leave behind. It was not because it was comfortable, even luxurious for its time period, but because his home had been so filled with love and joy and caring people. Hasmodai realized that outside the manor house, there must have been privation, poverty, oppression and suffering, but Andrew had not been old enough to recognize it yet when his life became Hasmodai's.

If Andrew had lived, perhaps he would have done something to help those people, to make their lives less desperate and short. Maybe he could have done some good, provided some remedy that would have sent a positive influence to spread into the future, and Earth would be a better world now for it. Instead, Hasmodai and his companions had left a trail of loss, sadness and bitter pain behind them. What shadows had the grief of their deserted families cast into Earth's future? What had become of the kind, affectionate Chaseman family after their beloved eldest son had utterly vanished?

Maybe, after all, Palza was the only one of them who had made the right choice, and that far too late.

He came to an arched portal that led away from the window, and checked his scanner. The Atalanta seemed to be laid out in concentric circles, and though the ship slept, at its center was a throbbing energy signature.

Hasmodai turned away from the sea and moved toward the heart of the ship.

Away from the windows, the Atalanta was in darkness. Lambent nodes on the spacesuit illuminated automatically as he left the light behind, shining feebly in the yawning, cavernous, empty gloom. The ship was a labyrinth, a minotaur's maze built for giants, silent but for the echoing rhythm of his own footsteps. He did his best to walk quietly, but even the slightest noise reverberated through the emptiness like an accusation. He was an intruder in a sacred place, a heedless archaeologist violating a crypt.

As he went deeper into the maze, Hasmodai felt a sense of despondency growing in him, a feeling of oppression, dread and anxiety.

He was so very, very alone.

Several times he stopped and listened, the rasping whispery echoes of his breath the only sound. I should go back, he thought. I should go back to the wreck and wait. I should return when the others are with me.

Then he walked on.

A faint vibration under his feet was the first indication that he was approaching the heart of the ship. As he continued on, it became an audible hum. And finally he saw a pale green glow radiating from a distant doorway.

When he reached it at last and turned to see what was within, Hasmodai cried out and sank slowly to his knees.

Beyond the portal lay a field of a hundred or more faintly glowing vertical columns. Each was a clear tube, filled with pale green gel. Each contained a body, frozen in sleep, gigantic in proportion. The sleepers had silver-white hair and wore clothing in the fashion of an age long, long past.

It wasn't the wonder and amazement of discovery that overwhelmed Hasmodai and left him trembling. It wasn't the flashback to the memories of their own preserved bodies aboard Georca's ship, or even the vivid, scintillating recollections of Greecia, his home planet, which the vision of these ghosts brought forth from the back of his mind with piercing clarity.

All his attention was riveted on the nearest column. Within, a young woman rested, suspended in her centuries-long hibernation. Dressed in a simple and elegant gown, she lay back against the wall of the column, lips slightly parted, hands clasped at her breast.

Hasmodai knew her.

* * *

Cooks glared out to sea as Pollux worked on the helicopter. How the kid had gotten permission to dismantle the thing, Cooks had no idea.

They had been lucky, though. When a reluctant Captain Walfang had been given orders to take the boy out to the landing pad and let him tinker with one of the aircraft, Walfang had insisted on a security guard accompanying Pollux at all times when outside the complex.

"Oh, all right," Pollux had said, pointing at Cooks. "That one will do." And Cooks had become Pollux's personal bodyguard.

The landing pad was sheltered from the wind, but that didn't keep it from being a frozen nightmare. Cooks huddled in his insulated parka and layers of high-tech cold-weather clothing. In spite of the gear, the cold soaked him down to the bone.

"I don't suppose you could do this inside?"

"The only room big enough is the hangar," Pollux said. "And that's where Castor's building his generator."

Cooks swore under his breath.

"Come help me lift this."

"I can't," Cooks said. "I'm your bodyguard. If Walfang sees me carrying your spare parts instead of guarding your body, he'll replace me with some other flunky."

Pollux threw his wrench down on the ice. "I…AM…FIVE…YEARS…OLD!" he practically screamed. "I CAN'T DO EVERYTHING MYSELF!"

"All right, all right," Cooks muttered. "Don't cry, it'll freeze to your face." He raised the engine part Pollux wanted lifted. "I'd think a five-year-old could lift the whole machine. This isn't a helicopter, it's an overweight mosquito."

The machine Walfang had allotted them was a tiny one-man reconnaissance copter. Cooks had no idea how they were going to fit in a man, two twins, and a wounded Ian Cole.

Pollux sniffled. "If we're going to get away, it has to be faster than the other copters, and it has to get to where we're going without refueling. I'm going to have to completely redesign and build the whole engine from the bottom, and there's no time to get custom parts made, even if anyone would do it."

"Maybe you could add a larger fuel tank, from off one of the bigger helicopters," suggested Cooks. "And a jet engine booster."

"Just do the heavy lifting and leave the thinking to me."

"Hmmph. You sure I don't have the twin with the attitude by mistake?"

Pollux returned to work, still sniffling, and Cooks went back to staring out to sea. He ought to have planned this better.

* * *

Tarlant tried to focus on the pod hull before him. If his concentration wavered, he was likely to create an irregularity in the clear hull, which would cause a focal distortion. It was not a huge inconvenience, maybe, if the passing landscape seemed to ripple a bit as you flew past it, but Tarlant preferred to return the shattered pod to as near perfect condition as he was able.

It was just a little more difficult to concentrate, of course, when Belle was hovering around behind him.

"Can I help?" she offered timidly.

"No." Tarlant didn't mean to be unkind, it was the simple truth. The girl didn't know a resonator from a particle convertor. Belle wandered away to sit by Tina. Tina, raised as a royal princess, at least had the good sense to keep out of the way and let people get on with their work. Tina could sit for hours gazing into space and doing nothing. It was kind of creepy.

The finality of Hasmodai's death had sapped Tarlant's hope for the survival of Agi, Mel, Seth and Dumas. But he kept working, because that was all he could do.

He finished and straightened up. Across the ice, he could see Soreto approaching with the two robots, towing the other pod behind them.

As disgusted as he was with Belle's actions, Tarlant felt sorry for her. There was nothing for her to do but sit and brood on the death of Hasmodai. While she had indeed been at least partly responsible, and certainly ought to feel remorse, torturing herself over it endlessly did nobody any good. If Agi were there, he'd have gotten it over with quickly, delivering a good, hard shouting-at, and a punch in the nose.

Well, maybe not to his sister.

But the point was, once Agi had ripped your heart out, you were free to go on with your life. Soreto seemed to be doing her best to avoid any contact with Belle. Tarlant wasn't sure if this was because Soreto couldn't stand to look at the girl, or didn't want to deal with the situation, or if this was some sort of complicated female punishment Tarlant was incapable of understanding. After so many years accustomed to Agi's leadership, it was unsettling to have a whole new set of rules to learn.

And if Soreto had just taken fifteen more minutes to return, Tarlant thought regretfully, he could have stolen a little break. She slid down off Squeak's back, and Tarlant eyed the second pod. The hull was shattered even worse than the first had been, and from Soreto's description, it must have suffered some engine damage as well.

"Have any trouble?" he asked.

"Bubble's cortical center burned out, but I replaced it," said Soreto. "It was fine."

Tarlant nodded. Before they had even set out for Antarctica, he had modified the robots to carry several spare cores each, and half a crate more had been salvaged from the wreck. On Greecia where they had been designed, the robots would have been no bigger to the inhabitants than a very large dog, and swapping out a core would be as simple as changing the battery in a child's toy. Here on Earth, the cores were heavy and the switch was awkward, particularly if there was no replacement near at hand.

The cold of Antarctica seemed to be affecting the cores as well. They burned out very quickly, and each switch seemed to give the robot…well, almost a personality change. One or two cores had caused such aberrant behavior that Tarlant had removed them at once. He had saved the bad cores, because they did not have an unlimited supply, and the time might come yet when a badly muddled robot was better than none at all.

"Good work," Soreto said. She was examining the repaired pod. "Do you need to take a break?"

Tarlant blinked. "Um…no, I don't, not really."

"Are you sure? We need your best work, Tarlant."

It was not something Agi would have offered, and it threw Tarlant off balance. Did he really need a break? With most of team out there missing or dead, and a pod to fix, and the world in jeopardy?

"No, I'm good to go," he said. Half the point of slacking off had always been the challenge of getting away with it.

Soreto nodded. "Don't push yourself too hard. Belle! Get in the pod. We're going out for a look around." Belle jumped to obey and hurried toward the repaired escape pod. As she passed, Soreto tossed her a rag and ordered, "Wipe Tarlant's fingerprints off the hull, first."

Tarlant had, of course, been wearing his makeshift mittens the entire time he worked. When Belle was diligently busy polishing the hull, Soreto turned back and said to him, "All right, Tarlant, what was that stare about?"

"Uh," said Tarlant. He hadn't realized it was noticeable. "You aren't planning to drop Belle into the ocean along the way, are you?"

Soreto sighed—a bit wistfully, Tarlant thought. "No. Like it or not, Belle is here, and we're stuck with her. She has to be integrated into the team somehow, otherwise sooner or later she's going to rebel or try to redeem herself, probably by doing something stupid that might get more of us killed. The best way to bring her on board is to find a way for her to make herself useful. And since we can't exactly send her out to gather firewood or ask her to build us an electron conversion generator, she'll have to come scouting with me. She wants to look for her brother, anyway, and another pair of eyes can't hurt."

Tarlant nodded. "Good luck with that."

Soreto walked away, her face grim. "I just keep reminding myself she's Agi's sister."

Tarlant watched as the two girls entered the pod. After the standard checks, Soreto tested the engine. The pod lifted off the ground.

He heard Belle shriek and saw her seize Soreto's arm.

"Is there a problem?" Soreto asked frostily.

"It FLIES!" Belle exclaimed.

Soreto closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Then the hatch closed, and the pod set out over the ice in quest of survivors. Tarlant was heartily grateful not to be going along on this mission.

Then he knelt down on the ice to examine the engine of the second pod, with a sigh. If only Agi had been there…this would have been the perfect moment to sneak a nap.

* * *

Hasmodai continued to stare up at the frozen Greecian woman.

How could he know her? How could she seem so familiar to him? This woman had not been on Greecia in close to a thousand years, now.

And yet, the feeling was so powerful it nearly hurt. He knew her.

Were his many Earth lifetimes, his misuse of the transference devices and spirit portals, beginning to effect his sanity? Or were the barriers that prevented him from remembering previous lives eroding? Had he known this woman long ago, on Greecia, before he had ever been Hasmodai? Had they loved one another? Had his soul longed for hers, the way Mel's longed for Palza's, all these centuries, while her soul lay trapped in this sleeping body? Was that why he had always felt so alone and incomplete?

Was that why the story of the Atalanta had so haunted him as a child?

Was that what had sent his mind exploring the land of Death?

Was this creature, this lost soul, that which he had been seeking all along?

He tore his eyes at last from the capsule. Not far away, an ancient, ornate control console was fixed to the deck. At his touch, the antique lit up, diamond-shaped buttons glowing in the colors of the sea.

This girl, these people…none of them should be awakened. It was a miracle that their life suspension system still preserved them, after thousands—no, tens of thousands—of Earth years. When they were revived, there ought to be a Greecian medical team standing by, a squad of historians and interviewers, or at the very least, somebody large enough to render aid if the reawakening body suffered complications.

Hasmodai stared at the ancient controls. He should not even touch them.

He started pressing buttons.


	15. Chapter 15 Embraced by Water

Chapter 15: Embraced by Water

Pirya had awakened from suspended sleep many times before, but it had never been this blindingly, sickeningly awful. She collapsed to the deck, her legs too weak from the stasis to hold her, cold and wet with the remains of the preservation gel that still clung to her clothes and hair. Supporting herself on trembling arms, she struggled to cough up the slime that remained in her lungs.

As she did, she felt the touch of a hand on her shoulder, and a voice speaking to her, frightened, earnest and repetitive. The accents and intonations were so strange that she didn't realize for some time that it was speaking in her own language, and the words it spoke over and over were, "I'm sorry…I am so sorry…"

She turned her head for a look at the man, and suffered a jolt of fear. Through her blurry vision, she could see that his head reached little higher than where her knee would have been, had she been able to stand. He was one of the little Earth people. Still, he seemed nonviolent at the moment, and his presence was oddly comforting. If he had been one of the self-appointed giant-killers, he would have had more than enough opportunity by now to have plunged his spear into her throat.

Slowly recovering, Pirya sat, resting her back against one of the stasis tubes, rubbing the gel from her eyes. She could see better now. The Earth man stood before her. Only a boy. His youthful face showed concern, and in place of the usual skins and rough cloth, he wore a strange, close garment that glowed with lights like jewels. Pirya looked up, and saw that she was leaning on the resting place of Zaios, his thick beard and brows looking as fierce in sleep as they had in waking.

"Dhou aist on man av Eareth?" she asked. It was a stupid question, but she had to say something.

"No, I—Nao, y am av Greecia," the man said awkwardly, and added in his own strange dialect, "It's a long story." He spoke again, a long, rapid sentence of which Pirya understood only the word "Atalanta."

Of course. Greecia had noticed their long absence, found them, and sent a rescue party at last. This young man must have been disguised somehow to blend in with the natives, though he had a poor chance of that with the fool's costume he was wearing.

When she said so, he only looked at her with blank confusion. Pirya wondered what part of Greecia he had come from, that the people spoke so oddly.

But what he wanted to know, naturally, was what had happened to the Atalanta and why they had never returned home. Speaking as slowly and as clearly as she could, she told him.

hr

The Atalanta was a magnificent vessel, enormous, and the product of Greecia's most advanced technology. It collected all the power it required from the light of suns and stars. The power system technology had been perfected by the eminent inventor, Poromet, Pirya's uncle.

Pirya was a child when the Atalanta set out on its mission, bearing a crew of scientists and observers intent on investigating Greecia-like planets that had, so far, been out of range of physical exploration. Her mother, Panara had been aboard as the ship's chief medic, her father, Emeth, as a scholar of alien cultures. Her uncle headed the technical science division. Pirya loved nothing better than to help in her uncle's workshop and hand him his tools while he puttered. She thought going into space with her family as her uncle's little helper would be the most exciting adventure of her life.

Earth had not been their intended destination. While they were in stasis sleep for the long journey to Relbaer, an unexpected collision with a rogue comet damaged the ship's systems. When they were reawakened, they found themselves nowhere near the target planet, and with a communications system so devastated it was beyond repair. There was no way to contact Greecia.

Earth was barely even recognized by Greecia's astronomers at that time, but it was the nearest water planet, and had its own variety of humans, who seemed not so very different from themselves. Captain Zaios landed the Atalanta in its ocean beside a temperate coast.

What was meant to be a brief stop stretched into years. Atalanta's solar power system, damaged by the collision, almost completely failed. It barely provided enough power for them to go on living in the ship, with no hope of ever putting it back into orbit. While stranded, the scientists pursued their mission of planetary study. The people of Earth were savage and primitive and unpredictable. Her father found them fascinating, and that fascination was shared by her Uncle Poromet.

"The minds are there," he had said repeatedly. "With a little help, a little boost from us, Earth could be another Greecia."

Others didn't share Poromet's optimism or affection for the Earth dwellers. The little creatures were completely unpredictable: one day they would worship the Greecians as gods. The next, an Earth warrior might attack one of their number with stone weapons, just to display his bravery to his fellows. One day, they would be friendly and absurdly grateful for bits of shared knowledge about agriculture, astronomy and music. The next day you overheard them telling each other stories of giants who devoured people alive.

Captain Zaios grew angry at the long exile, and his anger was directed at Poromet. The inventor was meant to be fixing the solar collectors. Instead, when he wasn't puttering with some frivolous new invention or other, he was off among the Earth people. He and Emeth started trying to teach them about writing, architecture, mathematics.

The tiny bits of knowledge they were able to dole out to barely-comprehending primitives had a bad effect in the end. Knowing there was much more, the Earth people became hungry for alien knowledge. They spoke among themselves of the secrets and treasures of learning hidden in the Atalanta, and soon those stories began to claim the Greecians were hiding more than knowledge: that the ship was filled with rare metals and gems of Earth, unlimited supplies of fine food, and magical weapons that could give their bearer all the power of a giant, or of a god.

The Earth humans became secretive and hostile. A few Greecians vanished, including Captan Zaios's son, one of the ship's officers.

Zaios's son was found. He had been trapped in a primitive snare and attacked, a number of small stone spears still embedded in his body. His death must have been slow and painful. The other missing crew members were never recovered.

After that, the captain ordered that all contact with the Earth people come to an end, and demanded that Poromet fix the solar collectors once and for all.

Quirky Uncle Poromet was a rebellious free spirit, though, and had no interest in recreating work he had already completed. He had an idea for a new sort of power generator, one that would not depend on any outer fuel such as sunlight or heat. His new machine, he promised, would tap into an alternate dimension, a world made up of pure energy. Zaios thought this sounded ridiculous, but he had little choice apart from letting Poromet pursue his new obsession. Zaios had not yet become a tyrant.

As Poromet worked, though, the Earth people grew increasingly aggressive. To whatever land the Atalanta moved, before long they would find themselves being attacked by Earth people greedy for imagined treasures. It baffled them all how those stories of giants' treasure spread over the globe with uncanny swiftness, in the absence of any technological system of communication.

The Greecians were bound by laws and oaths to take no harmful action against primitive natives, but in the interminable absence from their home world, their good intentions and civilized natures wore thin. Captain Zaios's command became more and more despotic, and his rage was directed at the Earth people more and more often. He encouraged his crew to open fire on them with Greecian weapons. When that failed to deter the primitives, Pirya's own mother, Panara, was ordered to pervert her medical skills to create deadly viruses with which to thin the local populations. Those among the Greecians who objected were punished, imprisoned, and sometimes even executed.

Poromet, meanwhile, worked on his new power system under guard, growing angrier by the day at Zaios's treatment of both the Earth primitives and his own people.

The new generator was completed at last, and it was all Poromet had promised. For the first time in years, Zaios was pleased. Power flooded the Atalanta once more. Again they had the energy they needed to shield the ship, to survive located in the middle of the sea where they were safe from encroachment, to return to a style of life that felt luxurious after the long privation, and to conduct repairs that might one day bring them home. Zaios even agreed to let Panara bring an end to the introduced plagues that were devastating the Earth tribes.

His only concern was that Poromet had vanished.

Nearly three months later, when Poromet returned, Zaios demanded an explanation for his absence.

"I have been out sharing our technology with Earth," Poromet said defiantly. "I have given them the design for the energy portal. I invented it, and it was mine to give."

Zaios had actually laughed. "What do you think these savages can do with your design? They can't even build a proper boat."

Poromet shrugged. "The generator is made up of many layered circuits. I've given each of the most powerful tribes the design for one layer. All they understand is that if they can learn to communicate and to cooperate with each other, those symbols will give them the power of the gods. Whether they make the generator or not, I hope that I have pushed them along the road to peace and civilization. Maybe by the next time Greecia visits Earth, we will meet on an equal footing."

Madness it might have been, naiveté it was certainly, but at any rate, Zaios had ordered no further contact with the people of Earth, and Poromet had disobeyed. Zaios made an example of him, having him bound and left on the hull of the ship to die slowly from exposure and thirst. When Emeth and Panara attempted to rescue him, they were caught and summarily executed.

Of all her family, only Pirya survived. Zaios permitted her to live, due to her youth, but she was imprisoned.

Then, one day, the lights went out in her cell and the walls grew cold. The door was eventually pried open by guards, and Pirya was taken before Zaios.

"You worked with your uncle on the dimensional portal," Zaios had said. "Something's gone wrong with it. The ship has no power. Fix it."

Pirya had been taken to the generator. It looked as it had always looked—a broad circular platform, with a wide beam of energy stretching from its surface to the collector above, from which power was distributed throughout the Atalanta.

It had been difficult to study the problem without energy to power any diagnostic equipment, but the conclusion she reached was inescapable.

"The flow of power has reversed," she reported. "For some reason, the generator is now sucking power from the ship instead of supplying it." Though she knew of no way to fix the problem, dismantling the generator at least brought an end to the outflow of power.

Or so she thought.

Released from prison, she was put to work repairing the solar collectors. In the wealth of energy Poromet's invention had supplied, the solar collectors had been neglected, even partly dismantled. Now they were once more the only hope of returning to Greecia.

But even as the crew worked with her to restore the system, disaster crept onward. The temperature sank every day, Earth becoming colder and colder. The energy flow, no longer sucking life from the ship, was sucking it from the planet. Their scanners showed the phenomenon was worldwide, and though the equatorial regions were still warm, the Atalanta no longer had enough energy to move there.

In the end, the cold began to kill them.

Finally Zaios made the only decision open to him. They would all return to stasis sleep. The partial remains of the solar collectors would provide enough energy to keep their bodies alive in a suspended state. The ship was programmed to reawaken them once the energy drain had ended and their surroundings returned to their normal temperature.

Finally, silently, the Atalanta slipped beneath the waves.


	16. Chapter 16 Crossing Lines

Chapter 16: Crossing Lines

The walrus didn't even look up as the pod silently flew by over its head.

"Sorry," Belle said miserably.

"It's fine. It's better to follow a hundred false leads than to risk missing that one time…"

The scouting flight was going much better than Soreto had feared. Belle kept her eyes open and her mouth shut, for the most part. Now, when Soreto was dazzled and worn out from the glare of the sun on ice, Belle still was managing to pick out dark spots and movement.

It wasn't her fault that all of those spots had been seals and walruses and oddly, tourists. Where had all the tourists come from so suddenly? Surely this was the wrong season.

They passed over yet another enormous iceberg, both examining it closely. They flew on.

"I never want to see another penguin in my life," Belle announced.

Soreto made an annoyed sound. "Helicopter—again!" She took the pod under water. For a frozen desert, Antarctica seemed to have a lot of traffic lately, especially where they wanted to search. She supposed it might be a good thing. Maybe some survivors had been found already. Maybe all the helicopters and inflatable boats in the area were searching for more. She wondered if there was any way to infiltrate the local research bases, or tap into their communications.

After passing under an iceberg or two, they returned to the air and resumed the search.

"Ian HAS to be somewhere," Belle burst out.

"I hope you'll remember to mention if you happen to see Mel, Dumas or Seth as well."

"Of course!" said Belle indignantly, adding in a quieter tone, "Well, maybe not Dumas."

They flew over a large island, scanning for anything that looked human. This one was deserted completely, however. They were getting pretty far from the area where the ship went down, so Soreto changed course to return over unexplored territory.

They continued in silence for some time.

"Do you think they're okay?" Belle asked in a small voice.

Soreto remained silent. She had no answer.

After another long silence, Belle asked, "Are you in love with Ian?"

Soreto had no answer for that, either. Was she? She loved Agi, of course, but she loved Mel, Tarlant and Hasmodai as well. They had worked together for so long, even before coming to Earth. Agi had always had a smile that could turn your heart inside out, and she had known not to read too much into it. Back on Greecia there had been professional standards, mutual courtesy, lines you did not cross. During their long, soul-wearying mission on Earth, it became even more important to respect each other's personal boundaries.

It had been wrong to kiss Agi that way on the ship, of course. Even now, she wasn't entirely certain whether it had been done only to express her anger, to open his eyes and to outrage Belle, or if those had only been her excuses for doing something she had genuinely longed to do. But she knew she had crossed the line.

All things considered, she didn't really regret having done it. And if Agi was really gone…she might have regretted never kissing him even more.

"Flo? Sorry- Soreto?"

Soreto looked at Belle. This was the first time the girl had called her by that name, the first time she had spoken anyone's Greecian name without a tone of mockery. Soreto had always felt there was something aggressive in the girl's insistence on using their Earth names when nobody else was doing it.

"It's fine," she said. "Either name works."

"How come you all have two names? Which is your real one?"

"They both are. It's complicated." Soreto sighed. "I suppose it's about time you knew everything that's going on." It was ridiculous to keep being annoyed by the girl's ignorance when they had actively kept her in it. "We'll all have a talk tonight and explain everything."

Belle nodded. "So, will I get a code name, too?"

Soreto had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. It was simply too childish. And yet, how like a complete outsider the names must have made Belle feel.

"We'll have to see about that," Soreto said. Of course they would give the child a Greecian name if it would smooth things over. They were short on supplies, they had lost most of their equipment and half their team, but names were available in unlimited supplies, and there was no need to ration kindness. Still, in letting Belle know the truth about them and their origins, Soreto would be crossing another line, one that Agi had definitely not wanted crossed.

They returned to the campsite with no success to report.

"So, what do we do now?" Tarlant asked, and they all looked at her. The same way they all, herself included, used to look at Agi, expecting him to have all the answers.

Agi had never said, "How should I know?" or "Not a clue." Soreto wondered what they would have done if he had. She knew she could not say it now.

"Tarlant, you said you left some of that salvage behind," she said. "Was there any of our sensor or scanning equipment?"

"Just bits and pieces. A few sensor panels. None of the control systems."

"Can we interface the sensors with the controls in the escape pods? Or the robots?"

"Maybe."

"All right, tomorrow I'll watch the camp. I want you to take Belle and Tina and the robots and bring back every scrap of equipment you can find. We'll find a way to make it work."

Soreto had no idea if there was any sense in what she was ordering, or if it would be of any use: the important thing was, her team had a direction and a plan, for at least one more day.

* * *

Hasmodai examined the dismantled generator. It was, as Pirya had described, a series of layers. Many of the layers had eerily familiar patterns.

As Hasmodai had first become acquainted with Earth culture, the similarities between some ancient symbols and the energy patterns the scientific team had used to open the Zone had struck him as either a macabre coincidence, or some sort of instinctual recognition of natural patterns of force. Now he had to wonder if fragments of Poromet's legacy had indeed been remembered this long.

"I'm pretty sure your uncle opened the Zone," Hasmodai said. "Of course, he didn't quite realize what he was doing."

"Yai, e al thet na Eareth av happed, na Greecia haps anow?"

Hasmodai had listened to enough ancient recordings to be able to make sense of the archaic dialect, though he had never found it nearly so charming before. Pirya had seemed to comprehend the story of his own adventures and mission, at any rate.

"Yes, the same thing is happening to Greecia," he confirmed. "I think your uncle may have unwittingly set off or accelerated Earth's last ice age."

"E Eareth ais frozed stil."

"Hmmmm…no. Actually," he informed her unhappily, "your ship seems to have drifted near one of the planet's frozen poles, so when the ice age ended, your automatic systems failed to—"

"Ay lang ev y sleapt?"

"Well, first, you must understand that time flows at a different rate on the Earth as it does on—"

"Ay lang?"

Hasmodai took a deep breath and let her have the bad news. "You and your people have been in stasis sleep for a little over nine hundred Greecian years."

The way she went pale, slumped against the wall and slid to the floor, he was glad he had not told her how long it had been in Earth time.

"It's all right," Hasmodai said. "Now that you know, we can move your ship nearer the equator. Once the solar cells have charged—"

"Zaios woll wekken."

Hasmodai hesitated. Yes, if he had understood her story correctly, once the ship was in a warm climate, the tyrannical Zaios and his people would wake. Somehow, the idea of an enormous, armed Greecian spaceship on modern Earth under the command of a thousand-year-old Earth-hating tyrant struck Hasmodai as a bad thing.

He might have been able to hack into the program and change the reawakening settings, but he hesitated to risk the lives of the Atalantans and their life support systems any further than he already had.

"We'll have to see that your ship takes off from Antarctica, then," said Hasmodai. "Let me have a look at your power system, maybe I can do something with it. If not, I have friends who are good with mechanical work, I'm sure that they would help you."

Or he hoped they would. As Pirya led him through the ship, Hasmodai tried to shake off the feeling that he was shirking his real mission. After all, even Agi must admit that the discovery of the dimensional generator and its history had proven to be relevant to their investigation. And these people were from Greecia, stranded here for nearly two hundred fifty centuries. How could he just leave them here?

How could he leave her?

Any concern he had felt over whether the solar power system would be beyond his abilities to repair vanished when he saw it. Advanced as it might have been nine hundred years ago, Hasmodai had put together model spaceships as a child with a more complex and effective power structure. Even a quick scan showed how flawed and inefficient the system was.

"It looks like the dermic conducting layer has deteriorated badly," he said. Actually, he thought it had probably been flawed from the beginning.

"Dhou kanst mende?"

"I could fix it, I suppose," Hasmodai said. "But it would probably be much more efficient to simply convert to ambient power collection. The solar collection panels have an adequate network of coverage, and the collection area could be extended to incorporate the entire hull surface. All it would take is a fairly routine reconfiguration of the molecular structure."

Rather to his surprise, Pirya didn't appear confused. She just crossed her arms and looked at him with narrowed eyes.

"E ay," she demanded, "purpost dhou effet sich majacle?"

Hasmodai smiled and pulled a tool out of his bag. "I don't suppose you've seen a particle converter before? It should take me about half an hour to plot the structural alteration and set the echo range parameters, then the reaction chain should complete the conversion on its own over the next day or so."

The look of stunned wonder on her face was simply adorable.

Hasmodai couldn't suppress his own smile as he began to program the molecular restructuring of the energy collectors. So, he'd be here a day or so. The team could get along without him. If Agi had a list of who they could afford to lose most, Hasmodai was sure he'd be at the top of it. Besides, they knew where to find him if they wanted to. It was they who had abandoned him.

Hasmodai took a long look around at the Atalanta, the ship he had dreamed of all his childhood. "You know," he said to Pirya, "there are people on Greecia, historians and antiquarians, who would consider any alteration or modernization of this ship's system as a crime against the universe."

"Dhey airent here," Pirya said pointedly.

"No, they aren't." Hasmodai activated the converter, and set in motion the systematic vandalization of a historical treasure.

* * *

Dumas couldn't really blame the diplomat for delaying them. They had turned up at the South East Islands embassy in Australia with no visas, no passports and no excuses, and demanded immediate transport home. The fact that the ambassador had personally met Damien at the royal palace was probably all that protected them from an interrogation by embassy security agents. As it was, Dumas was sure the reason for the delay was that the ambassador wanted to assure that Dumas was not fleeing the law, and that the distressed woman accompanying him was not a hostage.

Three hours working in the tiny access hatch of the climate regulator, plus four hours in the same hatch with Dumas and Seth during the flight had left Mel a wreck. She was shaking as if she were still in Antarctica, huddled and staring down at her feet. Dumas found a sort of vengeful humor in the entire situation.

The ambassador returned, his face officially apologetic. "I'm so sorry for the delay, Mr. Damien. There doesn't seem to be any commercial flight leaving for the islands for over a week. However, since you are a friend of the royal family, please let me lend you my personal airplane."

The ride in the taxi did nothing for Mel's nerves, and it wasn't until they were out walking across the runway at the airport that she stopped hyperventilating. By the time they reached the ambassador's hangar, she had almost stopped shaking.

But when they approached the plane, and she saw it, and realized, she froze. "No," she said emphatically.

Dumas didn't argue, he just seized her arm and forced her into the little plane's cabin.

"Seth, go sit with the pilot," Dumas ordered. "Make sure he realizes we're in a hurry. Lives are at stake." Seth entered the plane's cockpit as Dumas deposited Mel into one of the four passenger seats, sitting across from her. She sat with her face buried in her hands as the plane wheeled out onto the runway, built up speed and took off.

His broad, obnoxious smile was making Dumas's facial muscles ache long before Mel finally looked up and saw it. He was disappointed that she did not comment.

"I was just remembering," he said, "how cold the Antarctic sea was."

She looked up at him again. Her eyes were like windows into Hell. "Do you know what you are, Dumas?" she demanded in a fierce, unsteady voice.

"I do," said Dumas, smirking more broadly. "But if it makes you feel better, you can say it. I've heard all the bad words already."

"You are a wounded, emotionally crippled child, so starved for love and so certain you don't deserve it that you—"

Dumas put his hand on Mel's shoulder and released a stunning jolt from his energy pack. She slumped down in her chair.

"What did you do?" Seth demanded, as he came through the door from the cockpit.

"Stun burst," said Dumas. "I put her out for the trip. She'll thank me when she wakes up."

He picked up a magazine, opened it, and held it in front of his face, remaining silent for the rest of the flight.


	17. Chapter 17 Alien

Chapter 17: Alien

"Yeah," said Belle. "Right."

What did they think she was, stupid? Belle supposed that it might be a sign they were forgiving her that they would try to play this sort of prank, but seriously.

"It's the truth, Belle," Flo said. "Haven't you wondered at all? About the technology? About…about…"

"How about the spaceship?" Kalie asked. "And the robots?"

"Please." Belle rolled her eyes. "We didn't go into space, did we? And the robots are lame. In Japan, they have a robot now that can take you out on a date, order dinner, flirt with you, and kiss you goodnight. Your robots just do machine stuff. They can't even talk. Why don't you have super-powered androids, if you're really advanced aliens?"

"We don't make human simulacra on Greecia, for various reasons," said Flo. "Our robots are useful, practical utility machines. Surely some of the equipment you saw at the Rugen Institute—"

"Well, yeah, but that's a science place. It's supposed to be full of weird gadgets. And it's on Earth."

"The energy packs—"

"Do something alien," Belle demanded.

"What?"

"Do something alien. If you really are greasy aliens, then prove it. Do something alien."

Flo and Kalie looked at each other.

"What did you have in mind?" Flo asked.

"I don't know. Surprise me," Belle said. "Sprout tentacles or do a weird alien dance, or use the Force or something."

"We don't have tentacles," Flo said. "I told you, we are born into human bodies—"

"And then you burst out of the chest, right? So, are you supposed to be an invasion force?"

"We're scientists. We were originally sent on a mission to find Princess Tina—"

"She's a princess? WhatEVer!" Belle realized she should probably tone down her remarks. Kalie was giving her a froggy stare, and Ice Flo was getting that look on her face again.

"Sorry," she said. "Okay. My brother's an alien."

Belle felt terrible about what had happened to Hasmodai. Still, she thought, she HAD asked him to come with her. He had made the decision to stay behind himself. And even if the others had liked him a lot, even if they had all played this game together for the six years Ian was missing, it wasn't like…like it was their BROTHER who was killed or something. At least these kids seemed just as determined to find Ian as she was. She supposed she could cut them a little slack for that.

"Okay, so, the story so far is that Ian is the leader of an adventuring party of alien scientists in human bodies, who were sent to find a lost princess, and you finished that mission, and now you're back together to save the world from global warming."

Dumas had explained the whole game situation, before he went ballistic on her. Whoever it was who planned the role-playing campaigns for these science geek kids, they relied way too much on bad clichés. And the players took their game much too seriously. It all ought to have been called off when the ship crashed. Where were the adults? Doctor Hawksbee could not have been the only supervisor. Where was the backup, where were the emergency response people? It was completely irresponsible of the Rugen Institute not to have sent a rescue team out here already. They were KIDS! They shouldn't even be in Antarctica alone! And Flo refused to even consider asking any of the tourists or science teams out here for help. She was probably afraid of losing the scholarship, more afraid than of losing Ian.

"Well, it's a little more complicated than…okay, yeah, fine, sort of," Flo said, shaking her head.

"Got it. Can I have my alien name now?"

Kalie and Helga looked confused. Flo said heavily, "Belle wants a Greecian name. I thought it might help bring her into the group."

"I vote for Stinkpot," said Kalie. Belle stuck out her tongue at him.

"Yaira is a nice name," Helga suggested.

"How about Starfire?" Belle suggested. "Or Ki'Rin? Or Skyralar?"

"Yaira it is," said Flo, standing. Bossy as ever. She had almost seemed to warm up a little out on the search flight, but Ice Flo was definitely back.

"So, tell me about Planet Greasy. If Tina's the princess, who rules the planet?" Belle asked. "Is there, like, a king and queen or something? Are there nobles? Do any of us have royal blood?"

"Dumas is the king's nephew, and Lord Seth has noble blood. The rest of us are former scientists of the royal court. There is a king, but Dumas is actually in charge," Kalie said.

"Wow," said Belle. "Dumas is the ruler? Our planet sucks!"

"I'm going to sleep. Wake me for the last watch." Flo muttered as she turned away, "I can't believe I agonized over this decision."

When Flo had entered the makeshift snow shelter, Belle turned to Kalie. "So, am I supposed to come up with a background story for Yaira?"

"No. You're just Agi's little sister. We keep that in mind constantly." Kalie rose as well. "I'll take the second-to-last watch. You and Tina divide up the first two however you want."

"Kalie? Tarlant?" Belle called after him. He turned to look. As kindly as she could, Belle said, "You really need to think about giving up the role-playing games. Stop buying your clothes at the thrift store and find yourself a nice girlfriend."

He entered the shelter without another word. It was for his own good, Belle told herself.

Tina was looking at her oddly.

"You go ahead," Belle said. "I'll take the first watch…Your Highness."

As Tina walked to the shelter, Belle shivered. How could they be so absorbed in their game when one of the competitors had died and Ian and three others were missing? They were dangerously obsessive, maybe insane. She would join the silly game, it was better than being totally ostracized, but she couldn't take it seriously. Had they really thought she would believe in their little science fantasy world? They must think she was a complete infant.

* * *

Everything in the Atalanta was antiquated and half of it was deteriorating. Hasmodai helped redesign one system after another, repairing, improving, modernizing. He was delighted to find that nothing aboard the antique ship was beyond his ability to fix or improve. And the open admiration of Pirya every time he pulled another miracle out of his modern tool pouch was intoxicating.

Pirya was a quick learner, and was already adjusting her speech to modern parlance. The tools Hasmodai had brought had originally been reduced in size for Dumas's use. When returned to their natural volume and mass, Pirya had no difficulty learning to use those as well. She worked beside him, her knowledge of the ship and his knowledge of modern technology combining, so that the Atalanta was being completely transformed, piece by piece.

Another historic artifact I've polluted with modernization, Hasmodai thought as he watched Pirya adjusting the navigational console with the resonator. But she looked at him, and their eyes met, and she smiled, and Hasmodai felt such delight at that smile that he was afraid his heart would tear open.

Every conversation, every accidental touch, every meeting of eyes sent a jolt of intense, ridiculous happiness through him. When they rested from making repairs, Hasmodai coached her in modern speech. She told him stories of her life on Greecia and Earth in those ancient times, and he spoke to her of modern Earth and Greecia. Hasmodai felt he had never been so happy. He had never laughed so much before. He had never loved so suddenly and deeply.

The one thing that tempered his happiness as they worked together was that the hull conversion was proceeding quickly. Like a timer, it was measuring out the minutes until the moment came he would no longer have any excuse not to leave the Atalanta. The knowledge that the time was approaching when they must part sent a filament of bitter sorrow through his soul, which made the joy of the time they spent together all the sweeter by contrast.

As the time of parting grew nearer, both he and Pirya became silent and grave. Hasmodai concentrated all his attention on his work, refining the external surveillance system, increasing its range, trying not to think about his impending departure. Pirya suddenly announced that she was going to go look into the air circulation system.

Hasmodai did not speak or look at her. Pirya left the room. Her absence was already like a gaping wound.

It was better this way, Hasmodai thought as he went on working. It was better if they had a chance to distance themselves from one another before the final break. If they were to be parted, he could cope better with losing her by degrees than to have her vanish from his life all at once. The Atalanta must return to Greecia. Pirya could not live on modern Earth. And there was only so long Hasmodai could delay his return to his team and his mission.

He completed the sensor upgrade and placed his hand on the central globe to test it. The sensor projected an image into his mind, a view of the outside of the ship. Changing his focus, he examined the surface of the ice sheet above, then the floor of the ocean below, a pod of whales swimming past so close he felt he could have reached out and let his hand stroke their sleek sides.

He let his mind wander further, toward his home. Yes, the range extended to the South East Islands, though it was dim and flickering. He found his sister Serena, walking in the garden with Rogan. She looked happy. That was all right, then, she wasn't worrying about him. Hasmodai's mind sought out Agi next, but a confusing fog was all that filled his vision.

Soreto was his next target, and he found her. She was still with Tina, and it seemed Belle had found her way to them. He was delighted to see that Tarlant was with them as well. Under Soreto's direction, with the aid of the two robots, they were building some sort of snow structure on the ice, setting up a camp.

He sent his mind seeking out Mel next, but the result was a brief flash of complete darkness and the image of a rapidly receding, indecipherable shape. He got the same result when looking for Seth and Dumas.

Baffled, he returned to Soreto's camp. Work was continuing there. He could see that, apart from the shelter, a camouflaged ice dome had been built to hide the two escape pods. Everyone seemed…fine.

Frowning, Hasmodai sent his mind back to the ocean floor, to where the wreck of the spacecraft lay. Some sort of aquatic robots were hovering around, as well as couple of divers. The Earth humans had found the wreck and were trying to raise it. Hasmodai drew in closer, narrowed his vision, zeroed in on the inside of the cockpit.

Bits of broken equipment and personal possessions still bobbed in the water. Floating in the icy brine lay the extra spacesuits, their limbs moving eerily with the eddies and undercurrents of the sea. His message had gone unreceived, the cockpit untouched since his departure: the data crystal he had left plugged into the pilots' console was still there. When the first numbing shock faded, it was followed by a wave of hurt and bitter, uncharacteristic rage.

They had not even come back for him.

Hasmodai stayed in the control room until he calmed down, until he was able to unclench his fists again, until the pain and anger loosened enough to allow him to breathe once more.

Then he picked up his tool bag and went to find the one person on the planet who really needed him.

Pirya was standing in the life systems control area, a wall panel open before her, but she was not working on the distributors. She was staring into the wall, her eyes bleak. Hasmodai didn't know how anyone twenty feet tall could look so very vulnerable.

"Pirya?" he said. "The conversion is complete. Your power cells should be charging at a much faster rate, now. In a week or two, the Atalanta should be able to return to space."

She nodded wordlessly.

"I've decided to stay a little longer. To help you get the ship ready."

Pirya looked at him this time, a stare of surprise. "And your mission?" she asked haltingly. "Your friends?"

"I've seen them," said Hasmodai. "They are doing perfectly well without me."

The renewed hope and the pleasure in her eyes swept much of the pain from his soul. Pirya reached down and touched his face, a brief gentle caress. Then she returned to her work. Hasmodai took a deep breath, put everything else out of his mind, and joined her.

* * *

Doctor Randall Mellish yawned and checked the readings on the algae pans. The algae had been growing for three weeks now, and still nothing remotely interesting was going on. The experimental basins were growing at the exact same rate as the control group.

He returned to the front desk of the Rugen Institute. Kisa the coordinator had quit recently, and while they waited for some new applicant to pass the rigorous security and background checks, her job was being done by whoever had the most boring, least time-intensive project. Mellish was spending a lot of time at the desk. He wondered whether to eat the sandwich he had brought from home, or to go find out what they were serving in the cafeteria today.

From outside, he could hear the sound of a helicopter. Suddenly it came into view, landing in the small, ornamental garden outside the door, crushing some rare flower bushes. He was about to call security when Damien exited the machine, running. Damien, Mellish knew, was one of the institute's biggest benefactors, and he was expected.

"Damien, nice to see you a—" he started as the young man charged into the building. Behind, he could see some other boy helping a groggy Doctor Hawksbee out of the helicopter.

"Did you get my message?" Damien demanded.

"Yes sir, everything you requested has been loaded aboard the hovercraft. And we filed a flight path for an experimental aircraft, though as far as I know, we don't have one. Would you like to join me for—" But Damien was out the door again already and making his way to the hovercraft. Out the window, Mellish could seem him making a cursory check of all the cargo as Doctor Hawksbee was helped aboard.

Damien sat in the driver's seat, then, opened a control panel Mellish hadn't known was there, and started tapping buttons. A clear shield rose from the sides of the boat, enclosing its entire length.

Then the hovercraft rose out of the water, straight up, and rocketed away, leaving the Rugen Institute quivering in the blast of its sonic boom.

Everyone else gets the fun projects, Mellish thought. He went back to check the algae again.


	18. Chapter 18 Falling Darkness

Chapter 18 Falling Darkness

As the work on the Atalanta proceeded, Hasmodai felt himself less troubled by thoughts of the team and the mission. Random thoughts that brought his former colleagues to mind tended to provoke more anger and resentment than guilt. He remembered every rebuke, every act of disrespect, every time one of them had hurt him or failed him. Then, he let thoughts of them go completely. There was no room for those people in his life now.

If Pirya had not been there, Hasmodai felt he would have loved the Atalanta with all his heart. The ship needed him as much as the woman did, and it was beautiful and full of potential. It offered him challenges that, unlike the challenges of the outside world, he was always capable of handling. He explored every room, he examined every system for possible enhancement, he even reassembled Poromet's generator, though only from curiosity, and with no intention of ever activating it.

But in the presence of Pirya, Hasmodai felt he could spare little affection for anything as inanimate as a spaceship. Pirya was full of warmth and life. Her eyes sparkled when she laughed, glinted when she was angry, and softened into tenderness often. Hasmodai was impressed by her quick mind, admired her determination, and was amused by the tough, strict air she liked to put on. He even enjoyed their rare arguments.

Hasmodai began to build a matter transference system for the Atalanta, less because the ship really needed it than because he thought it would amaze and impress Pirya. The construction was far more difficult and complicated than anything he would have attempted to create alone before, and for just an instant, he almost wished he could ask for the help of Tarlant or Mel, as he would have when he was one of their group.

He pushed the thought away, though. On the level below, he could see Pirya working. She was restoring decayed softlinks with tools that had been invented hundreds of years after she left Greecia, using them as if she had been born with a wave emitter clutched in her baby fist. She felt his gaze, looked up, smiled at him. She was utterly enchanting.

How could this have come to be? Hasmodai marveled at the change his life had taken. Through the long years, the centuries of searching, it had so often seemed that life was nothing but a burden, an affliction filled with pain, suffering, loneliness and crushing responsibilities.

The reversal in his fate was almost frightening. He was free. It felt like waking from a terrible dream into a warm sunrise. It felt like finding a home you never knew you had. It felt like being given everything you had ever wanted. It felt like…like…

It felt like being lured by the Enma.

A chill entered Hasmodai's soul.

* * *

"I don't see how picking up garbage is going to help us find Ian."

"Just do it." Tarlant was lost. Things had always been so simple. He joined Agi's research team young and fresh out of the royal university, thrilled at the honor of working with such distinguished scientists on such a stunning project. Tarlant had worked hard, done as he was told (mostly) and followed Agi's lead. He wasn't the one who made the decisions, so when everything went to blazes, he at least felt free from the burden of guilt and responsibility that plagued the others. But he shared it with them and tried to help them bear it, because he was part of the team. He went on as he had begun, doing his best work, doing what he was told (mostly) and following Agi. In return, he expected the team to take care of him, and they always had.

Now he kept having the feeling that Belle was usurping his easy position as the baby of the family. Moreover, though there had not been any official hierarchy among the team, Tarlant was gradually moving into a leadership role simply by attrition. Tarlant had not the slightest wish to tell anyone else what to do. But now Agi was gone. Soreto seemed to be on her last nerve. Hesma was gone. Mel was gone. Palza was gone. Even Hasmodai, who had shared Tarlant's complete disinterest in leadership, was gone.

Who did that leave to deal with Belle's tantrums and denial and Tina's weird apathy?

Who was left for him to follow?

Tina worked silently, gathering bits of rubble and depositing them on the sledge. Belle worked noisily, fuming all the while. Last night's attempt to bring her into their circle seemed to have backfired badly, leaving her with the freely spoken notion that they were all obsessive and delusional.

"I don't see why the robots can't do the work," Belle grumbled.

"They can. But you'll stay warmer if you keep moving."

"So why aren't YOU picking up junk?"

Tarlant was tired. After his watch, he had stayed up to sit with Soreto on hers.

Whenever Kalie had been upset or miserable, his dog Wonder had come to him with uncomprehending concern and sympathy. She was incapable of understanding his problems and helpless to solve them. Her warm presence did nothing practical to help him, but it was sometimes the only comfort he had.

Tarlant had no idea why Soreto was so strung out. He had seen her handle a crisis before, had seen her take charge when Agi was away countless times, even some times that had seemed almost as desperate as the situation they were in now, but he had never seen her so close to the end of her rope. Tarlant had no clue himself what their next move should be. He barely remembered why they had come to this place. Weren't they meant to be looking for Soran? Didn't they all need to be sent back through the Zone to save Greecia? And how would that happen now, with Hasmodai dead as well as Hesma and Palza…and maybe Agi, Seth, Mel and Dumas…

Anyway, Tarlant could do nothing to help Soreto but sit with her, as Wonder used to sit with Kalie, and hope that his presence could give her a little comfort and strength.

Because if Soreto collapsed, Tarlant would have to be in charge. And that was a terrifying thought.

"Just give me one good reason why we're doing this?" Belle demanded.

"If we can get some of these scanners working, they'll have a much wider range than the scanners on the robots or the pods," said Tarlant. "We'll be able to get information from places we aren't able to reach or see now, like inside the research stations, or maybe in caves in the ice."

"Why don't we just go to a research station ourselves? We could be sitting somewhere warm, drinking hot coca, while a PROFESSIONAL search and rescue team looks for Ian instead of a bunch of gorfy kids."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Three words," said Tarlant with a straight face. "Alien autopsy video."

Belle was too young to understand the dark side of humanity. She had never experienced war, seen torture, been hunted by a hysterical mob. In her young, movie-warped idea of reality, she saw nothing unusual in their Greecian technology, but if someone with a more realistic perception were to discover what they carried, someone whose greed exceeded their morals and honor, then they would be willing to commit terrible crimes to possess any piece of it. And the uses that might be made of the technology afterward were even more horrific to consider.

"Let's take a vote," Belle said. "Whoever wants to go to the research station, raise their hand."

"It's not a democracy," said Tarlant.

"That's right, it's a monarchy. Tina, you're the princess, right? Shouldn't you be the one giving orders, not Soreto?"

Tarlant couldn't see Tina's expression under the wrappings, but she stopped dead, the pieces of broken equipment she carried falling from her arms.

"What do YOU want us to do?" Belle asked triumphantly.

"I think," said Tina after a long pause, "it would be best to do what Soreto says."

Tarlant breathed a sigh of relief. Sedition in the ranks from Belle was one thing, but he didn't know what he would do if Tina mutinied. And after all…she WAS the princess.

Belle sulkily went back to hauling wreckage and complaining. Tina slowly picked up the items she had dropped and deposited them on the sledge. Tarlant was keeping an eye on Belle and didn't notice for a few minutes that Tina was standing beside him. Through the straps of thermal cloth covering her head he could see that her eyes, usually so serene, were troubled and filled with pain.

"She's right," Tina said. "I ought to be in charge. I've been letting all the responsibility fall on you and Soreto."

Tarlant struggled for a response. In ordinary circumstances, he might have cheerfully told Tina to go back to being a figurehead, that nobody expected direct command from a girl whose mind was off in la-la land most of the time. It seemed to him, though, that Belle was supplying more than enough childish brashness to go around without adding his own blunt remarks. And his usual alternate tactic of silence would probably only seem to be agreement.

He finally said, "I believe that if you started giving orders now, Soreto would think you'd lost confidence in her. We've always appreciated the way you let us work without interference."

His attempt at tact seemed to be successful. Tina brightened immediately and returned to gathering rubble. Tarlant sighed.

After living over five centuries, it was hard to finally have to grow up.

The wind was picking up by the time they returned to camp. Tina and Belle stayed in the shelter as Tarlant and Soreto struggled to piece together enough equipment to create a working sensor array in what was nearly a blizzard. In their past adventures, they had always had unlimited use of the energy packs. Now, with every spark of energy needed for survival, they were reduced almost to the resources of normal humans. If not for the strength and lifting power of the two robots, it would have been impossible to align the sensor panels at all.

Still, by the time the sun was descending, they had their array constructed, and had torn out the sensor controls from one of the pods and linked it to the salvage heap. It looked like a crash dump, but the power grid ran to every sensor, and every diagnostic scan came back positive. From shattered trash they had created a miracle.

Except that it didn't work.

He and Soreto checked every link, double-checked, swapped out parts, changed the angle.

Belle came out during a lull in the windstorm. "How are things going?" she asked. They ignored her.

"Is that any better?" Tarlant had changed the array configuration again.

"I'm still getting nothing," Soreto said. "Do you think the pod controls are incompatible with the sensors?"

"Maybe the operating systems are too different," Tarlant said. "There ought to be some way to get the controls to recognize the sensor data."

"Can you fix it?"

"I think we'd need Mel or Hasmodai for serious computer tweaking like this. Me, I build stuff…"

Soreto began tapping at the controls again, making adjustments, testing code changes.

Belle suddenly asked, "So, if you're the robot guy, and Ian's the leader, and Tina's the princess, and Hasmodai was the computer guy, what does Soreto do?"

The girl had a positive genius for pushing Soreto's buttons, and she was heading for one of the big ones. "Soreto has training in an extremely wide variety of disciplines, making her singularly qualified to coordinate and synchronize the efforts of the team," he said. It was a direct quote from Agi.

"So, what you're saying," said Belle, homing in on target, "is that she's not REALLY good at any—mmph!"

"Let's go for a walk and look at the pretty snowflakes, Belle," Tarlant said hurriedly, one mitten clamped over the girl's mouth.

Before he had managed to drag her away to a safe distance she had twisted loose. "Let go of me! Why do you people do everything she tells you to? You all blame me for Hasmodai, but I asked him to come with me, and he wouldn't because SHE told him to stay there!"

Tarlant grabbed her again and dragged her into the ice dome where the pods were sheltered, letting her go with a shove.

"What is the matter with you?" he demanded. "You need to grow up, Belle. Now."

"Yeah. This from the guy pretending to be an alien."

"If you haven't noticed, we're in Antarctica. It's really easy to die here, and if we're going to accomplish anything, we need to work together. You say you want us to find Agi—Ian—but you seem to be doing your best to destroy us from within."

"Well, it's so stupid! And Soreto—"

"She is doing her best to find Ian. And your brother had a lot of respect for Soreto, so maybe you should lay off."

Belle bit her lip and looked away. Aha, Tarlant though. Her weak spot. He didn't know why he hadn't thought of it before.

"Sooner or later, we WILL find Ian, if he's out there," said Tarlant. "Do you really want us to have to tell him what a selfish, whiny, disruptive brat his sister was being while we were trying to save him? What would Ian think of the way you're behaving?"

Belle sniffled.

"Now go stay in the shelter with Tina," Tarlant ordered. "If you can't contribute anything useful, just keep to yourself. Do not go wandering off in a sulk on your own, do not think of taking one of the pods and forcing us to rescue you, and stop undermining people who are trying to get something done."

He walked her to the shelter and left her there. He resisted the urge to tell Tina to watch her, fearing that might just make Belle rebellious again. But he did lock the escape pod hatches with a recognition code.

Soreto was still working at the control console when he returned. He hoped she hadn't heard what Belle had said about Hasmodai. Soreto had enough to cope with right now.

He didn't ask her if she was okay, because he was afraid of the answer. He didn't ask what they would do next if this didn't work, because he suspected there would be no response. He just sat there beside her, quietly. Like a good dog.

* * *

He was a fool.

He should have known.

The images of the past dead had failed to entrap any one of the Greecian scientists during their long search for Tina. Hasmodai himself had nearly been taken, would have succumbed if not for the aid of Agi and the others.

Even then, when the Chasemans had appeared to him, he had known exactly what was happening, and had struggled to resist it.

Was this why the Enma had been quiet for so long? Had they been developing new strategies? Traps that could not be recognized?

If so, Hasmodai had been pathetically easy to draw in. The lure of an abandoned childhood dream, a fairy-tale romance, the chance to be needed and useful and loved—was that really all it took to tear him away from everything he knew was important? Even the visions in the scanner had conspired to convince him to stay, driven a wedge between him and those who had helped him escape the Enma before.

Everything here was a lie.

He ought to have suspected from the moment the Atalanta appeared conveniently right before his eyes. Things did not happen that way. Magic wasn't real. Stories didn't become true just because you wanted them to be. Hadn't he learned by now that life was all about pain?

Pirya looked up again, smiled. He did not return the smile.

Inside the spacesuit, the energy pack was still attached to his belt. The old one, with the Enma blade programmed into its functions. If, implausibly, somehow, Pirya was real, it would not harm her.

If she was a deception of the Enma and he struck her down…all this would vanish.

He had known what the Chasemans were when they appeared. He had not been able to bring himself to dispel that warm and inviting illusion.

He was still weak.

Hasmodai had wondered, sometimes, what would have happened if he had simply given in to the Enma, accepted their illusion and let himself become Andrew Chaseman once more. Would they have left him to enjoy that happy illusion for eternity? Or just until the soul had been drawn from his body?

He would find out now. He would go on playing out their scenario. Hasmodai returned to working on the matter transference system. The joy had gone out of it, though, and the challenge. He knew the machine would work perfectly because this was, after all, his fantasy world, designed entirely to keep him happy and oblivious.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Pirya, or the image that presented itself as Pirya, come out of its workspace and stand looking up at him. He did not look back.

Some stories are too good to be true, and some things are too beautiful to be real.


	19. Chapter 19: Daybreak

Chapter 19: Daybreak

"Wake up, Tarlant!"

Soreto was pushing at his shoulder, calling his name urgently. Groggily, Tarlant opened his eyes and looked at her. There was something different. She was...smiling. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"You did it," he said. Above the sound of the wind he could hear the choppy, static-filled transmissions of the research stations, and a projected green field glowed above the control board, sparkling with bright flashes whenever snowflakes were driven by the wind past the aura of warm air the robots radiated.

"There's some tea for you, there," Soreto said, lifting her own mug. "It might still be warm. Belle brought it out. What did you do, threaten to feed her to the penguins?"

If he had been Soreto, Tarlant wasn't sure he would have risked drinking anything Belle brought unexpectedly, but Soreto's mood seemed so much improved that he said nothing. He tried the tea. It was not exactly warm any more, but it hadn't frozen, so he drank it. It seemed all right.

"So, are we picking up anything interesting?"

"It's hard to tell with the snow blowing around. I'm looking for energy signatures similar to our packs, but setting the parameters to a very low level, so that we might still register a pack that's drained or almost drained. So far the most promising indicator is on an island research station."

"So, someone may have made it to the station."

"It's a fair distance from the crash site, but they may have been rescued or picked up by the researchers. Don't get your hopes too high, though. We're picking up a lot of slightly similar readings. I think they must be experimenting here with energy collecting devices not too different from our own. It's also possible they simply recovered one of our lost energy packs."

Which would mean, Tarlant knew, that whoever had been wearing it was most likely dead.

"In the morning, we can start thinking about how to get inside the station for a look," Soreto said.

"The storm is getting worse, though," said Tarlant. "Why don't you go back to the shelter and get some sleep? We have enough junk left to put up some sort of wall to block out the wind. The robots and I can handle it."

The wall was difficult to erect in the screaming wind, and it wasn't until the sky started to turn pale again that he felt the scanning area was adequately sheltered. He dropped exhausted onto the dented crate Soreto had been using as a chair. The scanning field was much easier to read without snow blowing through it. Tarlant closed his eyes and leaned on the control panel. He was out of the wind at last, finished with his work, and ready for another nap. The soft static and muted transmissions coming over the audio circuits nearly lulled him to sleep before he realized what he was hearing.

* * *

As he walked with Pollux out to the landing pad, Cooks made his usual detour to the infirmary, hoping to see some change in Ian Cole's condition. Each time before, the boy had still lain comatose on the medical cot. Today, though, the cot stood empty.

And Mac and Della, the two medical techs, were strapping a coffin to a wheeled cart, grim-faced.

Shit, thought Cooks.

"The kid died?" he asked.

"Not yet," said Della. "He's just in the hotbox for the ride out to the ship."

Mac added bitterly, "Ten to one he'll be dead before reaching port. But the last part of Castor's machine arrived this morning, and Baldwin absolutely insists on the 'terrorist' being shipped out on the cargo freighter before the big demonstration. Like a teenage kid in a coma is a huge security risk."

"I'm sorry," said Cooks. "I know you guys worked hard to save him." He stood and watched as the techs completed their work and prepared to wheel Ian Cole's soon-to-be corpse out to the dock.

"Tell you what," said Cooks. "We're going out to the landing pad, anyway. Why don't we take the kid out for you?"

As he expected, both techs were grateful not to have to make the cold trip out into the rising storm. He wheeled the cart out of the infirmary, down the narrow corridor to the exit and out onto the ice.

"What are you doing?" Pollux asked in a panicky whisper.

"Change of plans," said Cooks. "We're leaving now. Can this thing be attached to a helicopter?"

"Yes, that's what it's meant for, to airlift injured people. But it won't fit the scout copter! And the engine's still in pieces!"

"We'll take one of the others, then," said Cooks. They reached the landing pad, and the two of them worked to fasten the insulated container to the skids.

"Can we even take off in this wind?"

"Yep."

"Castor's not here, though! We need to get Castor!"

"The kid in this crate is in danger of being shoved onto an Antarctic freighter for a long, slow, cold, rough trip he probably won't survive. Your brother is in no immediate danger. We'll find a way to get Castor out later, after we get Ian to a hospital somewhere. I figure his chances must be better of surviving a fast helicopter flight than a voyage by freight barge."

"And how do we keep them from coming after us?" asked Pollux. "I mean, in the scout machine, I was going to double the speed and give us a stealth radar profile, and-"

Cooks picked up a large screwdriver and stabbed the two extra helicopters viciously in the fuel tanks.

"You think too much, kid," he said to Pollux. "Let's go."

* * *

Soreto ran to the scanning area through the screaming winds. It was just as Tarlant had said. On the scanning field glowed a bright new mark. Over the audio came a message, automatically repeating, in Dumas's voice. "Team Greecia, respond. If you can hear this, try to hold on and we will come looking for you as soon as the sun rises. An evacuation vessel is standing by and is located at-"

Soreto punched buttons. "Is there any way to respond?" She didn't wait for Tarlant's answer, she knew herself they had not thought to incorporate communications functions into the jerry-built scanner. She tried her voicelink with no response. It was either failing to make a connection with the new, unknown network, or possibly, Dumas was sleeping.

Soreto looked at the sky. It was growing pale around the edges, just the faintest blush of pink beginning to color the horizon.

"So, shall we wait here and be rescued?" Soreto asked. It was a rhetorical question. Minutes later, Tina and Belle had been rousted out of the shelter and into the escape pods. They rose up into the fury of the windstorm and moved toward the sea.

* * *

The matter transference device worked flawlessly, of course. As he had known it would. Every important system on the ship was working at a higher level of efficiency than its original design would have allowed. Hasmodai could have made some cosmetic repairs, fixed frozen doorways and removed dents and scratches in the wall, and he might have done it if he cared any longer.

The illusion that was Pirya appeared surprised by Hasmodai's emotional withdrawal, then hurt, then resigned. Soon there was only one thing that needed to be done to make the Atalanta ready to depart. Hasmodai began to prepare the preservation chamber for Pirya.

"In a week or so, the Atalanta's power cells should be completely charged, and I've preset your engines to depart for Greecia at that point," he told her. It. "With the improvements I've made to the engines, it shouldn't take more than eight or nine years to get you home again. And there are new safeguards in place. There is absolutely no danger of an accidental collision happening this time."

"I don't want to sleep any more," said Pirya. How unrealistically quickly she had picked up modern language, Hasmodai thought wryly.

"You can't wander around the ship alone for the entire journey. For one thing, the systems required to sustain active life will drain power from the engines, and it may take as much as twice as long to reach home."

"You say the ship will not leave for a week. Let me live free until then. Stay with me."

"No." His voice sounded strange and cold, even to himself. He relented a bit, let his expression soften. He had loved her, once, when he had believed she was real. "You won't even know the time is passing. You will go to sleep and the next thing you know, you will be arriving in Greecia."

"Then come with me," Pirya begged. "Come to Greecia with me, be there when I awake."

"I can't," said Hasmodai. "They need my soul to help save the Zone, remember? You wouldn't want to get to Greecia and find it's nothing but a frozen ball of ice."

"It would make little difference," said Pirya. "I know nobody in this future Greecia. I know not this world. Nothing I possess, none of my skills, none of my knowledge will have the smallest value on a planet filled with such wonders."

"I think you will be surprised to discover how mistaken you are about that," he said. "The Royal Historical Society alone will probably keep you and your shipmates busy answering questions for years on end."

With a last sigh of resignation, Pirya stepped into the preservation chamber. Her eyes, desolate, never left his.

"Will I ever see you again?" she asked softly.

"If we are meant to be together, I know that we will find each other." He forced himself to meet the eyes of Pirya. They looked so real, so sad. "I promise you that."

Hasmodai activated the stasis system, saw the expression fade from under her drooping eyelids. Gel began to fill the chamber.

He was surprised to find his face wet with tears, his chest heaving, and his throat constricted. Of course, he thought, shoving away the emotion with a blast of cynicism. It would hardly be a satisfying fairy tale without the bittersweet parting.

He walked, alone, to the surveillance system, put his hand on the globe. Would the Enma allow him to leave the ship? He thought so. Seeing the Atalanta take off was another necessary plot device, and he could hardly enjoy that from in here. It would be easy enough for them to transfer him to some alternate fantasy.

There appeared to be several interesting things going on in the area. In the end, he decided that a reunion with the friends who had left him to die probably had the most dramatic potential. He took one, long last look around the control center.

The coordinates were selected, and the matter transference system activated.

And Hasmodai left the vision of the Atalanta behind.

* * *

The escape pods were buffeted by the wild air currents. The potential for buildup of ice on the hull worried Soreto. She could fly by instrument readings if necessary, but Tarlant and Tina were in the pod which had been cannibalized for its scanner controls.

She needn't have worried-the driven snow was fine as sand and frozen too hard to cling. There was no moisture in the air to form frost, except for that which they exhaled on the inside of the pods.

"How are you doing?" she spoke over the ship-to-ship channel.

"Fine. Just don't go too fast, we need to keep you in visual range," said Tarlant. "It's not easy to see you in this mess." Even as he spoke, there was a hissing noise from the hull as another cloud of driven ice particles engulfed the pod.

Dumas's signal was playing over the scanner system, and Soreto homed in on it. As they left the ice shelf and flew over the sea, the blown snow vanished. She could see it rising like a plume from the ice behind them, falling below the cliff. Tarlant burst out of that cloud of snow into the clear air, and Soreto increased her speed.

Soon she could see something far ahead, a small ship tossing on the windblown sea.

"Soreto?" Belle was looking frightened. "Listen!"

Over the audio, another signal had interrupted Dumas's.

"Repeat: you are an unauthorized flight in violation of the no-fly zone surrounding the climate regulation band. Turn back now, or you will be fired upon." The message played over in another Earth language, and another.

"What do we do?" Belle asked.

"Tarlant, we're crossing the missile range again! Fly above and just behind me, as close as you can get!"

Tarlant changed his position. Soreto anxiously watched the scanner. Soon three warning blips appeared-they had been fired upon. As she had hoped, all three missiles were homing in on Soreto's pod.

"Tarlant, full speed! Get to the ship!"

Soreto veered wildly, drawing the missiles off. She recalled that a second, more dangerous salvo of missiles had been fired the last time they crossed this line, but not until the first barrage had failed. The pods had been safe from the original attack, attached to the ship and protected by its shields. She had little hope that the fragile pod would shrug off even the light missiles now trailing them. Her best chance was to keep the missiles on her tail and hope to give Tarlant time to reach Dumas.

She made a sudden, drastic course change. Belle squeaked as she was thrown against her harness, and the missiles lost ground, veering widely before coming around to bear on her again. She jinked two, three more times, the missiles coming closer with each maneuver.

"Unstrap, we have to jump!" she ordered Belle.

"You're NUTS!" Belle shouted, but unbuckled her harness with no further argument.

Soreto swerved one last time, punched the button to open the hatch, and grabbed Belle. "Hold on tight!" she ordered. Belle wrapped her arms around Soreto's neck, and they leaped from the hatch.

The force of the wind drove them tumbling through the air, Soreto trying to get her bearings before they hit the ice-black sea. She managed to levitate, carrying the weight of Belle, managed to stop them both from plunging into the ocean as the escape pod erupted into a fireball above them, its burning remains flying on to splash into the water.

Soreto spun, trying to find the ship among the tall storm waves, knowing she had only a few moments of suspension before the weak charge in her energy pack gave out entirely.

There it was. Soreto propelled them forward, but a wall of water rose in front of them, struck them down into the depths.

They emerged, gasping, the wrappings around their heads and hands soaked with the freezing sea. Soreto willed every last bit of speed and lift from the energy pack, hurrying them toward the waiting ship, but she could feel that it was not enough, that they were slowly sinking toward the deadly ocean.

Belle suddenly released her grip, and Soreto clutched her tighter, gritting her teeth, hoping the stupid girl wasn't planning some idiotic act of self-sacrifice, planning to leave Soreto free to save herself.

But Belle put her free hand on her own energy pack, and Soreto felt a sudden boost as they rose from the surface once more. It seemed Belle did have a little of her brother's common sense after all. A little.

Then an outer force lifted them from the sea, raised them into the air, and gently put them down on the deck of a wildly tossing ship. Mel left the controls and ran to them, helping them up from the deck as a barrier rose to shield them from the bitter winds outside. Tarlant and Tina were there, and Seth and Dumas.

They were alive


	20. Chapter 20 A Scattering Regathered

Chapter 20: A Scattering Regathered

If not for the shielding wall that protected the landing pad from the wind, it might have been dangerous or impossible to start the helicopter. Once the engine was running and the rotors safely whirring, it would be simple to fly, Cooks thought. The wind was blowing in the wrong direction, though: it might take more time to reach South America than he had planned on. Cooks had a friend in Chile. Hadn't seen him for years, but he was still pretty sure he'd be able to land his helicopter on the ranch quietly and depart from there with some forged identity papers. A cop always knew where to get forged papers. Of course, getting there was the tough part. Cook had a map of Brightwater's fuel dumps, and expected to have to make several stops.

"How far does this thing go on a tank of fuel?" he suddenly asked Pollux.

"I have no idea," Pollux said. "You're the pilot."

"You're the genius. I just took a few flying lessons when I was a rookie."

The radio on Cooks's belt suddenly burst into sound. "Cooks, is that you in the helicopter? What do you think you're doing? Shut down the engine at once."

Instead, Cooks raised the collective. The rotor pitch increased, and the helicopter lifted off. When the wind struck the body of the copter, he had to stop the ascent, adjusting the yaw with the pedals. Below he could see security guards running onto the landing pad.

"Did you pass those flying lessons?" Pollux asked nervously.

"Nobody likes a wise guy, Pollux."

"I'm serious!"

There were shots being fired from below. Cooks heard bullets pinging into the body of the helicopter, punching through the aluminum. Ready or not, he thought, and pushed the cyclic forward. The helicopter moved ahead, sinking toward the ice. Pollux yelled in terror as Cooks increased the pitch again, and they bounded back up into the wind. It would be really impressive, Cooks thought, if he crash-landed or rolled over twenty feet from the takeoff point.

Then they left the island behind, flying out over the turbulent sea. The sun had just risen.

They hadn't gone far when Cooks realized he had miscalculated badly. The wind was so fierce that it was driving them sideways, out over the sea, when what he needed was to skirt the Antarctic coast, near the refueling areas. He adjusted his course, but even when he pointed the nose straight for land, he found they were being carried out further.

"This may be a wild ride," he warned Pollux.

"At least nobody's following us," the kid said. "Puncturing the fuel tanks seems to have done the trick. Only…"

"What?"

I—I sort of think one of those bullets hit our fuel tank as well…"

Now that it had been brought to his attention, Cooks could hear a soft gurgling, smell the acrid scent of leaking fuel.

"Irony," he commented. "It'll get you every time."

"You're bleeding."

"Yeah." He had been hoping the boy wouldn't notice for a while. "Have you ever flown a helicopter, Pollux?"

"No. But I sort of know how."

"This might be a good time to get some practice."

* * *

"You couldn't wait an hour for us to pick you up?" Dumas asked drily. But he was standing beside Tina, with his hand on her shoulder, and Seth thought he seemed to be a bit more relaxed...as much as Dumas ever relaxed, anyway.

The castaways looked surprisingly well for having spent days in Antarctica unprepared. Now they sat together with Mel. Their ragged, makeshift gear had been replaced with real cold-weather clothing, though in the relative warmth under the insulating canopy that covered the ship, hoods were down, gloves off and facemasks left open.

"You've found no sign of Agi yet?" Soreto asked.

"We believe we may have detected his energy pack at Sei Station," Mel said. "It's a research base operated by Brightwater Industries."

"Yes, we picked that up, too," Soreto said. "We were planning to check it out today, until we heard your transmission."

"That might not be so simple. It's the main control center for the climate regulator band, and there's a lot of security."

"Maybe not as much as usual," Seth said. "There's a whole lot of traffic around the island at the moment. There's even a cruise ship anchored nearby. Something's going on."

"What none of you seem to be considering," said Dumas, "is that the wreckage of our ship is gone. Somebody has taken it, and whoever that was probably found Agi's remains as well."

"Or they may have found him alive," said Soreto, glowering at Dumas as Belle broke into tears.

"We can't leave our wreckage in the hands of Brightwater, at any rate," said Mel. "They like to cling to their reputation as an environmentally progressive organization, but they have at least three unofficial weapons development divisions."

Suddenly, something spidery and huge rose from the sea, its metallic legs tapping the canopy over Seth's head. He yelled and fell backward.

"Bubble!" Tarlant shouted. The canopy was opened, and the robot clambered aboard, followed by Squeak. "I gave them orders when we left to follow your signal."

"They might be useful," said Dumas. "Meanwhile, try and stop them from dripping all over people."

Seth closed the canopy and continued listening as they discussed ideas about how to break into Sei station. The trouble was, nobody had much of a clue what they would be facing. Seth idly glanced at the scanner, wondering if it was possible to zoom in on the station and get a complete layout of the place. In spite of the recent heavy traffic and tourists, nothing seemed to be moving over the sea today but one lonely helicopter.

Seth frowned and turned up the audio reception. He started the hovercraft engine.

"What are you doing?" Dumas demanded.

"Distress signal!" The craft rose from the water and Seth gunned the engine forward. "There's a helicopter going down!"

"So what? It doesn't concern us! We have a mission to-"

"There's nobody else out here but us," Seth said. "It's a little kid, and he says the pilot's unconscious! Maybe you forgot how much fun it is to go swimming around here, but not me."

Dumas tried to wrest the steering controls from Seth, but Tina caught his arm. "Dumas, we have to help!" she said. "Please!"

"Help? How?" Dumas demanded. But he stopped trying to interfere. "You want us to bring these Earth people on our ship?"

"We have to help," Tina repeated. It was not a request this time.

"Listen to her!" Seth said. He increased the speed. Maybe Tina was getting back to being her old self again.

After several minutes at full speed, they could see it. A helicopter flying erratically, barely clearing the tops of the tallest waves. It seemed to have some sort of a pontoon, but only on one side, so Seth guessed it could not make a water landing. One of the climate regulators was visible nearby, and the helicopter seemed to be trying to make it there. Probably because it's the only thing to hang on to, thought Seth, remembering his own experiences.

Three red marks appeared on the scanner display.

"More missiles!" Seth shouted.

Dumas struck a control on the dashboard, and the targeting device for a sonic cannon rose from the deck. For a moment, Seth was afraid Dumas was about to shoot down the helicopter himself, but when Dumas pulled the trigger, two of the missiles exploded in midair.

The third hit the helicopter.

The machine tore apart, sinking quickly under the waves, and without thinking about it, Seth jumped overboard.

The cold water was like knives against his face again, but at least the rest of him was better equipped this time. His hands were encased in insulated gloves, and the hood of his cold-weather bodysuit snugly covered most of his head.

The broken hull of the helicopter was just below the surface, a child and a middle-aged man still strapped in. Seth released their harnesses, pushing them free of the wreck, then kicking to the surface, pulling them with him.

The ship's hoist lifted the three out of the water and levitated them to the deck.

"Idiot," said Dumas. "We could have just pulled the entire helicopter aboard."

Feeling stupid, Seth said, "Well, I saved you the trouble."

"Thank you, Seth," Tina said. "It was very brave." She smiled at him. That made it all worthwhile.

More missiles were firing, this time at the hovercraft, and Dumas used his sonic cannon to explode them before impact, and kept blasting down into the sea until the scanner showed no more missiles in the area, active or inert.

The boy was not hurt, and once he was out of his wet clothes and warmed, he revived. The man was in worse shape.

"Two gunshot wounds, burns and some shrapnel," Mel said, running a medical scan. "Worse, he seems to have advanced stage cancer."

"Can't be helped, then," said Dumas. "Pitch him over the side." Seth glowered at him, as did Mel and Soreto. Seth was sure Dumas wasn't serious, just going out of his way to be a jerk, as usual.

They did their best to help the wounded man. When he was sure there was nothing he could do to help, Seth went to sit next to the boy. He was wrapped in a warm blanket, but still shivering and crying.

"Hey, it'll be all right," Seth said. "If it's possible to save him, they can do it. Is that your dad?"

"No, he's just—he—he was helping me escape."

"Escape? You're a prisoner?"

"No," the boy sniffled. "Not really."

"Then…why did you have to escape?"

"It doesn't matter!" the boy cried. "I have to go back! Back to Sei station! My brother's still there!"

Seth scratched his head. "So, then, is your brother a prisoner?"

"He likes it there."

"But you don't."

"I would rather die than go back," the boy said in such an intense tone that Seth believed it.

"So why go back? You must really love your brother."

"We're twins," the boy said. "Castor and Pollux. Gemini. Like the constellation, we'll always be together."

Seth heard something drop to the deck and shatter. Looking up, he saw Mel staring at the boy, her face gone as pale as ice. She took a step toward him.

"Palza?" Mel said.

Oh, great, Seth thought. Mel has lost it. He could see by their apprehensive expressions that the others shared his reservations.

"Uh, Mel—" said Soreto.

Mel ignored them, kneeling down to stare into the boy's eyes. "Palza?" she said again, more softly. The boy stared back. He looked petrified.

Soreto put a hand on Mel's shoulder, but she didn't move, and neither did the boy.

"Dumas," Soreto said, "Is there any way to…to activate Palza's memory from here?"

"With the memory record at the Rugen institute? We don't have the equipment."

"I have Palza's memory record here," said Mel, pulling it from an inner pocket. "I always carry it with me."

"Of course you do," said Soreto softly.

Mel plugged the crystal into her energy pack. A soft glow radiated the boy's face and faded. The boy stared at her blankly for a minute.

"Mel?" he said then. "Oh, Mel!" He threw his arms around her neck, buried his face in her shoulder and sobbed. The two held each other there, as the others stood silent and the storm winds blew outside.

After a time, someone cleared their throat. "That box, floating out there," said a voice. "Someone's inside it."

Everyone on the boat turned and stared again.

* * *

Hasmodai found himself on the deck of a small ship. He seemed to be in the illusion he had chosen from the scanner—his former friends were here—but he didn't understand the scene at all. Mel was kneeling on the floor, hugging a sobbing little boy. Had Gherta Hawksbee had grandchildren? Hasmodai hadn't thought so.

He waited to be noticed, but everyone was fixated on Mel and the boy, which struck Hasmodai as odd, since this was his illusory world. He looked around for more information, and something caught his eye. Out on the waves bobbed an oblong metal box with rounded corners.

Queequeg's coffin, was the thought that crossed Hasmodai's mind.

Curious, he pulled out the old scanner and took a reading. There was somebody alive inside the box. Ishmael? Hasmodai began to wonder if the Enma had actually let him go. This didn't strike him as any fantasy he might have been tempted by, not any of it.

Everyone was still surrounding Mel and the child. Hasmodai cleared his throat. "That box, floating out there. Someone's inside it."

They turned and stared at him silently, as if they were seeing a ghost. Which, he supposed, they were. He had wondered how they would react—if they would welcome him as if nothing had ever happened. If they would beg his forgiveness. He waited.

At last Soreto approached, her expression unreadable. She raised her hand and…

And slashed him through the heart with the Enma blade.

Hasmodai clutched at his chest reflexively, though he had not been harmed by the blow.

"Hasmodai, it's really you," said Soreto, but there was a strange, lost expression in her eyes.

"You look…disappointed."

"Not to see you, Hasmodai," Soreto said. "Never to see you." She approached him, reached out to him.

Hasmodai flinched from her touch and backed away. He had no idea what was real anymore, and only wanted something to start making sense. Then Belle hurled herself into him so hard he dropped the scanner, throwing her arms around his body and crying. "I'm so sorry, Hasmodai," she sobbed. Hasmodai began to think this might not be an illusion, because his ribs and back hurt terribly.

"Uh, Belle, I think you'd better ease off," said Soreto. "I'm not sure Hasmodai has recovered from the crash yet."

"Where have you been?" Tarlant demanded.

"Sleeping Beauty's castle," Hasmodai said coldly.

Tarlant looked at Soreto. "How hard did you say he hit his head?"

Dumas and Seth, apparently less interested in Hasmodai's resurrection, had pulled the coffin aboard and opened it.

"It's Agi!" Seth shouted, and Belle's anaconda-like embrace released so suddenly that Hasmodai nearly fell over. Tarlant tried to steady him, but Hasmodai struck his hand away.

If this was an illusion, they were all only Enma bent on luring him to death or forgetfulness.

If this was real, they had abandoned him to die.

Worse, if it was real, then the Atalanta had possibly been real as well. And he had been the stupidest, bone-headedest, most pea-brained, merciless, monstrous idiot on the face of the planet.

* * *

Agi sat on the dark, silent shore. The dark waves ran up the sand and ran down again. Nothing else moved. Nothing else changed.

Except…he could hear them now. He could hear the voices of his friends, far away and indistinct, calling his name.

They were coming to him. They would always come to him. They always followed him.

And he would lead them where they needed to go. It would not be long now.


	21. Chapter 21 Clearing Skies

Chapter 21: Clearing Skies

Pollux was gone.

Castor fidgeted. He had spent the last few days under constant supervision, finishing his project and being displayed to all the visiting executives and dignitaries by Doctor Mellert.

He had felt that something odd was going on with Pollux, but hadn't had the time or opportunity to analyze the situation. And now, where he usually felt the presence of his twin, there was a frightening void.

Pollux was gone.

Castor could feel him out there, somewhere, but far away, and…altered somehow. Could he be dead? Could Pollux actually have taken that final step that he had considered so often?

Pollux had always been weak, too weak to survive. Castor had learned to be strong to protect both of them. Pollux had been soft, so Castor had turned his own heart to stone. Pollux had been timid, so Castor had become hostile. Pollux had been miserable, self-loathing and ridden with guilt. Castor had learned to take his pain and direct it outward in rage, defiance and contempt. Now, with Pollux gone, he no longer knew what to feel. He no longer knew who to be.

Not that he had much choice today. He was sitting at the breakfast table with Doctor Mellert and a few of the guests—though she had at least given up trying to make him socialize—and afterward, he would finish assembling the machine. He felt a strange lack of interest in completing the project. In the emotional vacuum left by Pollux's absence, he could no longer remember why it was so important that the world be destroyed.

Except that he had nothing else to do.

* * *

Palza had realized from the first time they opened the Zone that they were doing something profane, violating something sacred. He did not blame the others. He had been as guilty as any of them. His early studies had been focused on medicine, though he had eventually come to feel he had more to offer in research than in actual treatment. It had been exciting. All he had thought of at first was of patients too horribly wounded to live, people who received treatment too late. If Agi's project was successful, they would be able to heal those bodies at leisure, and retrieve the souls when their physical containers were functioning again.

But from the first undead marmot, he had known it was wrong.

He tried to share his feelings with Mel, but she was a hard-headed, practical technician, and didn't take his moral reservations seriously. None of the team shared his trepidations. Agi may have had doubts, but he did not let them interfere with his work. Soreto always backed Agi up. Hesma had no interest in whether something was right or wrong, he was only interested in accomplishing his goals and pushing on to the next great technical achievement. Hasmodai loved research for its own sake, and was too wrapped up in his fascination with the Zone to consider any moral repercussions. As for Tarlant, he was as unconcerned and excited as a child exploring a new playground.

He ought to have been more vehement with his objections then, ought to have rebelled when it might have made a difference, when it wouldn't have been a betrayal. But he was weak. He made feeble protests and, when those were ignored, followed along.

Then Titas had come to them, begging them to perform the very function Palza had once dreamed of: to restore a human life cruelly cut short.

And it had become a horror.

Palza was the only one of the group with medical training, and after they further defiled the Zone by sending themselves through it, he tried to do his best, he tried to support the team, because he knew his skills were vital to their success and possibly their survival. He hoped they would quickly find Princess Tina, send her back into the Zone, return home, and then everything could be left alone, as it ought to have been from the first.

It didn't work out that way. Every lifetime they lived, every transference device they built, it all outraged his ethics. And each time he silently acquiesced to it, he felt a piece of his soul torn away. They were abominations, aberrations against the natural order, and in the end, even his love for Mel was no longer enough to make him go through with it one more time.

And here he was back, and everything was a mess again. And he would help them again…because he didn't have anything else to do.

At least Mel was beside him once more. Her eyes were brown, now, with wrinkles at the edges, her hair dark and greying. But the Mel behind those eyes was the one he had always loved. He could even remember meeting her when he had been Conrad Rugen, but only faintly. That had not been included in his memory record, of course. But bits and pieces came back.

Tina was here, at long last. And Dumas appeared to have become their ally. Palza was not quite sure where Seth had come from, but there wasn't really time to do a lot of catching up.

Hesma was not among those present. Apparently he had been killed at one point. Palza thought he knew, suspected he suspected Hesma's ultimate fate. Palza could still feel his connection to Castor, faintly. He felt fear and confusion. For once they were on the same page.

Palza deactivated Hesma's old scanner. "I've done everything I can for Agi's injuries," he said. "But I can't seem to revive him."

"Will he survive until we get back to the Rugen Institute?" Dumas asked.

"He should," said Palza.

"Then we're going," said Dumas.

"We can't!" Palza said. "My brother—"

"Pollux's brother, not yours," said Dumas. "We have retrieved everyone we came for. We expected Soran, but found you instead. We are now ready to return you all to Greecia via the Zone, thus reversing the damage that was done when you transferred here. Since you missed the original briefing, Palza."

"But Castor is building something…I don't know exactly what, but I know it's extremely dangerous," Palza said. "It's…it's some sort of machine, made up of circular layers in varying patterns, something like the energy fields we used when—"

"Poromet's generator," said Hasmodai. "It channels energy from the Zone. The last one put the Earth in an ice age for thousands of years. Did you know Prometheus was from Greecia?"

They stared at him. Hasmodai was keeping his distance from the others. He looked unsteady, twitchy, and possibly deranged. Palza quietly scanned him and winced at the reading. His next patient.

"Castor is Earth's problem," Dumas said. "My only concern is to get you back to Greecia where you belong."

"I agree with Palza," said Mel fiercely. He took her hand. "We need to retrieve our wreckage from Brightwater anyway. And if Hasmodai's right—"

"What do you mean, 'if'?" Hasmodai shouted furiously.

"The wreckage can wait. Global disaster can't," said Dumas. "Hasmodai is clearly raving out of his mind—more than usual—and there's no way anyone currently on Earth could possibly open the Zone without Greecian technological help."

"You said their missiles-YOU said nothing on Earth could harm your spaceship," Hasmodai accused him.

"Those were probably the advanced missiles Castor designed," said Palza. "Dumas, I think Castor may be Greecian. I think…I think he may be Hesma."

Silence followed this statement.

"We have to bring him back," Tina announced. It was quite clearly a royal order.

A hubbub of voices broke out, Soreto giving orders, Mel asking him about Sei station's security arrangements, Seth shouting excitedly as he started to activate the ship's support vehicles.

"No."

Dumas's voice cracked like a whip, stilling their voices. "You are all necessary for the survival of Greecia, and I am not going to risk losing any of you again. Not one of you is to set foot off this ship," he ordered. "I will bring Hesma back."

* * *

Agi sat on the dark shore, waiting. He could still hear the voices. He waited for them to draw closer, for the familiar faces to appear around him again. Apart from being proof that his friends were near, the sounds the voices made were as meaningless to him as the soft, almost silent splashing of the waves.

One of the voices, though, suddenly cut through the fog filling his mind.

"Ian…oh, Ian…wake up, Ian…please…"

Belle? What was she doing here? She should not be coming to the dark shore. Belle was a new soul, fresh and innocent. She had no part in their crimes. She had never shared their guilt. She could not share their doom. Agi could not let her come here.

He listened, struggled to concentrate his mind, and gradually began making sense of some of the noises he heard. Or not sense, exactly. Meaning. What he heard was beyond sense.

"Get away from me! Don't touch me! I don't need YOUR help!" It sounded almost like Hasmodai. Except for the words. And the rage.

"Hasmodai, if you don't sit down RIGHT NOW and let Palza put your skull back together, I will personally break every other bone in your body."

Soreto. Hadn't he always believed she was too easy-going?

"Honestly, Hasmodai, in your condition, it's a wonder you're able to function at all."

Palza. It was Palza's voice. Palza?

Slowly, slowly, like swimming through thick mud, Agi struggled to hear and understand.

* * *

Soreto let the soft light shine on Hasmodai's face from her energy pack. Already he was beginning to relax, to look more himself. Still, Seth and Tarlant kept a tight grip on his arms as Palza worked.

"What are you showing him?" Mel asked.

"The same memory I recorded for Dumas," said Soreto. It had been a day in the Greecian mountains, from when she was a young girl, the first time. Wildflowers had been in bloom everywhere, a blaze of color wherever she looked, butterflies flocking everywhere, and wildlife playing among the rocks and shrubs as if the beauty of the day had driven all fear and need from their lives. The sun had set over the sea in a stunning, glorious spectacle of glowing clouds. Then came a clear, warm night with fireflies everywhere, like a reflection of the stunningly bright stars above. It was, Soreto thought, just the sort of memory Hasmodai would enjoy. Who wouldn't?

"It's hard to believe Hesma might actually be out there," Tarlant said. "Are you sure he has no idea who he is? Hesma always remembered before."

"He had a goal before," Soreto said. In his last incarnation, that goal had been taken from him. His Greecian body had been lost, his hope of returning home had been lost, and finally his life had been lost. And now, Hesma had lost himself.

They jumped as an alarm blared nearby. Squeak's cortical center was about to blow.

"Always at the worst possible moment," Tarlant growled.

"Go ahead and fix it," Soreto said. "I think Hasmodai is settling down." The insane fury in Hasmodai's eyes had faded, to be replaced with an expression of bleak despondency and despair. It was, at least, a more familiar expression, if more pronounced than she had ever seen it before.

"Are you feeling any better, Hasmodai?"

"You didn't come back for me."

Soreto sighed. "I'm sorry, Hasmodai. Both of the pods were wrecked, and by the time Tarlant fixed them and we returned, the ship had sunk and you were already gone."

"I left a message."

"We didn't find it. We scanned for life signs from outside. Hasmodai, we thought we lost you." She put a hand on his shoulder. "Haven't we always come for you, Hasmodai? Haven't we always protected you from the Enma?"

"Yes," Hasmodai said. "I'm always being rescued." He didn't sound any happier.

"We wouldn't keep doing it if you weren't important to us," Soreto said. He didn't respond, and she racked her mind for some lifeline to throw him—some good memory to recall, one of his favorite poems. Her mind was a blank. She even considered whether a slap across the face might snap him out of it, or or whether it might break him entirely.

Palza shut down the medical tools. "That should take care of it. I don't think there was much permanent brain damage, but we should keep an eye on him for the next few days. And Hasmodai, you need to rest as much as possible."

Palza picked up the scanner again for a final examination, and Soreto saw his face freeze in shock, then become a mask of horror. She felt an echoing stab of panic—was something else terribly wrong with their friend?

"Palza, what is it?" Mel asked.

"Orsel," Palza said. "I'm—I'm getting a reading of Orsel energy nearby!"

"That can't be!" Soreto said. But it was Hesma's old scanner. It had recognized Orsel before, had positively found it on Earth, where it definitely didn't belong. "Where's it coming from?"

Palza, shaking, moved across the deck of the ship. They followed him to where he stopped, to where the reading was strongest.

At Palza's feet, still smoldering, was the burned-out cortical center Tarlant had just removed from Squeak.

Tarlant snapped the carapace shut and jumped down as the robot began its reactivation cycle. "What do you mean, Orsel? What are you talking about?"

"Tarlant, how are the cortical centers powered?" Soreto demanded.

"I don't know," Tarlant said. "We didn't have enough that I wanted to risk taking one apart. And I've tried to scan them, but they're shielded."

"Did you use this scanner?" Palza asked.

"No."

"This was Hesma's scanner," said Palza. "Hesma did not respect secrets." He continued to adjust the scanner, until suddenly it projected an image, a diagram of the round, flat core. Palza expanded the image and moaned. "It's Castor's machine, all over again."

"No," said Hasmodai. "This is different."

"You probably shouldn't be thinking, Hasmodai," said Tarlant kindly. "It's probably like running a car on a flat tire."

Hasmodai ignored him. "The patterns are the same, but not all of them are there, and they repeat in reverse order halfway through. I don't think this is designed to channel power from the zone. It looks more like a containment unit, like it was designed to suspend a packet of Orsel within its center."

They stared down at the smoking core, the meaning of Hasmodai's words slowly sinking in.

Soreto heard a creaking noise from behind her, and Belle gasped. Agi was standing, the blankets he had been wrapped in hanging from his shoulders, his eyes sunken and filled with a terrible wrath. He looked like something risen from the grave.

"They are using souls," he said through gritted teeth, "for BATTERIES!"

He took a step forward and staggered, but none of them moved to help him. The ferocity of his anger froze them in place.

"Tarlant, shut those robots down," Agi ordered. "NOW!"

Tarlant moved to obey, but Bubble and Squeak rose high on their legs and skittered away from his reach.

"I said SHUT THEM DOWN!" Agi barked.

"I'm trying. They don't want to be shut down."

"DO IT!"

Tarlant tried again. "They won't let me. I think they want to go on helping us."

"Tarlant—"

"If they have souls, shouldn't it be their choice?"

Agi hesitated. Some of the anger went out of him. It seemed to have been all that was holding him up, for he slumped to the deck. Soreto and Tarlant leaped to his aid and helped him back to the cot.

"It would explain the pattern of Orsel redistribution," Mel said. "The cores are manufactured on Greecia. They must be pulling souls from the Zone, packaging them—"

"The manufacturers can't possibly realize what they're doing!" said Palza. "At least, I hope not."

"So the souls are leaving Greecia's zone in big masses as the cores are built, and popping back one by one as they burn out," said Tarlant.

"The Rugen Institute has around three hundred Homonculoid robots," Mel said. "They burn through cores at…well, over the last six years, Dumas has shipped tens of thousands of cores to Earth."

The long, horrified silence that followed was broken suddenly by laughter. Soreto did not blame the others for staring—the laugh had surprised even her. She was shaking, and tears blurred her vision.

"I'm sorry," she said, wiping her eyes. "I know it isn't funny, and that it doesn't really change anything or make the situation less critical, but…but don't you see—this time…none of this was our fault."

She felt the realization spread over them, like the warm sun coming from behind a cloud, like a burden being lifted.

"And now we know how to fix it," said Agi. "We'll have to see that the production of the cores is stopped immediately, and that all of them are returned to Greecia and the souls released to their proper Zone."

"Since we can detect the difference now between Greecian and Earth souls," said Hasmodai, "it should be possible to find and transfer displaced souls from Zone to Zone with the equipment we've already developed."

Agi sighed and lay back on the cot. "You have all done well," he said weakly. "I can see you've accomplished great things."

"Without me," he added after a moment.

Soreto said, "Agi, I'm sure that if you had been—"

"No! No," he interrupted. "You don't need to comfort me. I'm…glad. Sometimes I forget that you can stand on your own. I am so proud of all of you. Belle?"

"Oh, Ian!" Belle kneeled beside Agi, clutching his hand. "I never stopped looking for you!"

"Thank you," Ian said, smiling up at her. "You found me. Have you been all right? Have you been behaving yourself, little sister?"

"Of course," said Belle. "Sort of."

"Have my friends been looking after you?"

"Yes, Ian."

"Do you like them?"

"I suppose so," said Belle, a little reluctantly.

"Then it wouldn't upset you if Soreto were to kiss me again."

A muscle twitched in Belle's face.

"Oh, do what you like," she said irritably, giving her hair an annoyed twitch and stalking away.

Agi turned his face to Soreto, gave her that smile, and lifted one brow, a hint of mischief in his eyes.

What else could she do?


	22. Chapter 22 Cold Comfort

Chapter 22: Cold Comfort

Dumas swore as he piloted the escape pod toward Sei Station. He had not realized until he entered the pod and started the engine that there were no scanner controls. But he thought leaving the pod and taking one of the hovercraft's utility vessels instead might make him look foolish and indecisive in front of the scientists.

So he had made the truly foolish choice to take the pod. The storm and the snow blowing off the landmass made it difficult to see where the island was.

But Dumas was not nearly as absorbed with the difficult flight as he was with the strange sensations in his own heart, an emotion creeping through him so unfamiliar that he had to wonder what it was.

Is this what hope feels like?

Dumas had spent his life being cursed by Georca and insulted by enemies and rivals. He had found it amusing at times, or used it to stoke his hatred and anger at the man who called himself Dumas's father.

Nothing before had stung him like Mel's words to him on the plane. He had thought her broken, subjugated, powerless to strike at him, but Mel had proved that she still had weapons. And now she had her lover back, and Dumas could almost see the healing happening.

Lovers—it amused him to think of the old woman and the tiny child that way. He could barely even admit to himself that he found it strangely touching.

She had called Dumas a child, said he was afraid he did not deserve to be loved. Dumas did not know why it had bothered him. He had stopped being a child the day Georca murdered his mother. Afraid? No. He knew he did not deserve to be loved. His mother had been a shining soul, someone so pure she had been able to love even a creature like Dumas, a son so worthless he could do nothing to prevent his own mother's death.

He had let himself be used, then, as the murderer's pawn, as long as Georca's obsession of finding Tina suited Dumas's own plans. The hunt after the scientists had been satisfying—who better to track down monsters than another monster? He learned to manipulate, to terrorize, to torture, to murder, with little compunction. What crime could make him more of an atrocity than he already was?

But then he had found Tina, and in spite of all he was, she had loved him. She had their mother's pure soul. Dumas did not, he could only have inherited his spirit from the filthy Georca.

But he could at least put himself in Tina's service. He freed her, and the scientists (whether they deserved the mercy or not, Tina had defended them) and took her weaponized, preserved body to Greecia to rot, so that nobody could ever force her to inhabit it again.

And after that, he had planned to remove a blot from the face of the universe by ending his own monstrous life.

It was Goto who had dissuaded him. Without a legitimate heir to the throne, the King's advisor had claimed, Greecia would break out in civil war as soon as Titas died. Thousands, millions would suffer and die.

"Your mother would never have wanted that," Goto had said, a low blow. "Or your sister. And if Tina should ever change her mind, and choose to return to Greecia, her kingdom would be a shambles."

Dumas thought Goto was naïve. It was certain that anyone who did not object to the blood of Georca being on Dumas's hands would object to it running in his veins. But in the interest of preserving his sister's throne for her, he accepted. And here he had ended up.

And here on Earth he had discovered his fellow monsters not to be quite so monstrous after all.

Here on Earth he had seen Mel's endurance, and the beginning of her recovery, one of his more heinous crimes unraveling itself.

Here on Earth he was about to bring back Hesma, the man he had murdered, and return him to his friends.

Was this what life was? An endless series of second chances and new beginnings? There might be others like his mother and Tina, other pure souls who deserved to live. If Dumas was able to save Greecia from destruction and from civil war, Dumas would have saved them, too. And if Dumas could do that, didn't it give his life some worth after all?

And if someone with a pure heart could actually love him…could it be that he was not a complete monster?

Life might possibly be worth living.

The snow cleared for a moment, and Dumas saw Sei Station below.

* * *

"How are things going, Castor? Will we be on schedule?" The boy was puttering with the control panel, at this late moment. Mellert resisted the urge to smack him.

"Finishing touches," said Castor. "It's pretty much done."

"Castor's been working very hard on this, Mr. Phelps," said Mellert. "Castor, you remember Randolph Phelps, the company director?"

She gave Castor a glare to impress him with the idea that he couldn't get away with telling the actual director to buzz off and let him work, and the message was received. Castor politely said 'Nice to see you again," and went back to puttering.

Phelps was a heavy man with a cheerful face, slightly windburned from his recent sightseeing activities. He looked at the hangar, the energy collector overhead, and the lines of circuitry radiating from the central machine, its visible top layer a circled pentacle flush with the floor.

"My goodness, it looks positively occult," said Phelps. "Shall we be raising Asmodai?"

Castor actually looked up at that, with the strangest expression Mellert had ever seen on his face. "As…Hasmo—"

"I'm sorry, I forget sometimes that you're only five years old," Phelps said. "Asmodai was a king of demons, one of the seven princes of Hell, a representative of one of the seven deadly sins. Solomon summoned him to help construct the temple. And, er—you're a bit young to hear any more. He was a very naughty creature."

"It…sounds familiar," said Castor. He went back to his work, a confused expression on his face.

Kahale Baldwin appeared at the doorway, waving urgently at Mellert. "Excuse me, Randy, I have to take care of a little business. Castor-behave."

As little as Mellert liked walking away from the company director, she had trusted Baldwin to handle things on his own too often lately. She had only discovered recently that one of their climate regulators had been stolen—STOLEN!—and turned up on some Australian beach, its hatch wide open and its security protections deactivated. And in spite of the fact that this was a serious international felony, the Australian police were claiming there was no evidence and they had no suspects at all, or any idea how it had got there.

This morning, a rogue security guard had abducted Pollux. The man had flown off in a helicopter and unwittingly blundered into the missile defense system. There was no doubt the helicopter had gone down, and then the entire missile bank had gone offline. If not for the raging windstorm and the scheduled demonstration, she would have had security boats and helicopters all over the area.

As it was, they were keeping it quiet. It would be a mistake to upset Castor before he had finished his presentation.

She went to meet Baldwin, gritting her teeth and dreading another debacle.

"What is it, Baldwin?" she demanded. "Randolph Phelps is in there alone with Castor, and it's probably only a matter of time before the kid starts mouthing off."

"We have an uninvited guest," said Baldwin.

"What, in the middle of an ice storm?"

"He apparently slipped in with the last group of VIPs."

"Slip him back out. This affair is by invitation only. In fact, have him arrested."

"Well, it's just that…it's Damien."

"Damien who?" Mellert asked. Then her eyes widened. "Not the Rugen Institute Damien?"

The Rugen Institute was one of Brightwater's most dangerous competitors. While on the surface business relations were very respectful and cordial and "we're all saving the planet together," the Rugen Institute was causing Brightwater some serious profit loss. They had consistently managed to underbid Brightwater's keystone service, their water reclamation system, for the last two years. Even long-standing customers were switching to the oddly artistic Rugen purification towers. Brightwater had bribed an official in Liberia into letting them dismantle one of the towers, but they still had no idea how it worked. Mellert had hoped Castor would put his mind to it, but the temperamental boy had taken one glance at the tower and refused to even look in its direction again.

The fact that Gherta Hawksbee had three achievement awards from the Women's International Scientific and Environmental union and Mellert had never even been nominated only made it more personal.

Ten to one, the Rugens were behind the stolen regulator.

"Damien, how delightful to see you again!" Mellert said, entering Captain Walfang's office.

Idiot, she thought. Damien was wearing an elegant sport coat over a silk shirt, and his signature wrap-around dark glasses. He had a parka, but it was thrown over his shoulder. Damien's pretense that he didn't feel the cold might have actually impressed her, if his lips didn't have a blue tinge to them. Damien was clearly freezing, but more concerned with making an impression that keeping warm. Just like a teenager.

Though it seemed to her that Damien had been a teen for a long time. Hadn't he been the Prince's age? And the prince was married, now, with three children.

"You're lovely as ever, Doctor," said Damien. "Even all bundled up."

"To what do we owe the honor?"

"The king just thought he'd send someone down to have a look at how you're running his little outpost in the frozen South," said Damien.

"That's odd," Mellert said. "Since the station belongs to Brightwater Industries, not the government."

"SEI Station? South East Islands?"

"You're under a misapprehension," said Mellert. "The station was named after the Sei whales native to these waters. The outpost controlling the northern regulator band is Beluga Station."

"I must have misunderstood his Majesty, then," said Damien. "Didn't you invite him down here for your little soirée?"

Mellert considered. An invitation had indeed been sent to the royal family of the South East Islands. It had been declined. Still, she knew Damien was a court insider, and may actually have been sent as a representative. Brightwater's main office was on Natsuna Island. They would not want her to risk offending the royal family.

"Baldwin, why don't you take Damien to the kitchen? I believe there are several other guests there he knows and would enjoy meeting again."

"Actually, I'd love a chance to talk to the Weaver twins," Damien said.

"That won't be possible. You will see Castor at the demonstration. I'm afraid Pollux is not feeling well."

"Pity," said Damien. "All right, then, lead on, Baldy."

* * *

The hangar was filling up with people waiting for the demonstration, all talking, laughing. Castor loathed crowds at the best of times, but slipped into the throng to give the slip to the tediously cheery Phelps.

He wanted his brother here. Where was Pollux? What had become of him? Castor had asked Baldwin, and got a lie in return. Captain Walfang had given him a different lie, and Doctor Mellert had only said breezily, "Oh, I'm sure he's around here somewhere."

As he wandered through the crowd, thankfully too short to be noticed by half the chatting throng, one of the local snippets of conversation caught his attention.

"…can't believe they didn't cancel this after what happened to Pollux."

"I know, it's just—"

It was a couple of the station scientists.

Heart thumping, Castor slipped into the next room. He would find Pollux. He could feel his twin out there somewhere. He fastened his hood and facemask and pulled on his heavy mittens. He entered the corridor leading to the nearest exit and stopped.

A young man stood there. A stranger, in dark glasses and clothes suited to a much warmer climate.

And for some reason, the sight of him filled Castor with terror.

* * *

Dumas stared at the child. He could see nothing of the boy but two terrified dark eyes peering through the slit of the mask. He leaned forward and tore the Velcro open to reveal the boy's face.

Castor leaped for the door handle behind him, but Dumas was larger and taller, and only had to lean on the door to halt Castor's escape. Castor pulled an electronic device from his pocket and shouted into it, "Security alert! Security alert, sector five!"

"Wow," said Dumas. "I didn't know hand warmers had transmission capabilities. Nice try."

The cornered boy, out of options, stared at him with panic-filled eyes.

Was that how old I was, Dumas wondered, when my mother was murdered? Was I ever that small and helpless? As he understood it, this kid's parents had sold him to a corporation.

Being little sucked.

Dumas was sorry for the helpless, unloved little boy, maybe even felt compassion. Or maybe that was just the link he felt to Hesma—a bond forged by his crime, like the bond that connected him to Mel.

"Hesma," Dumas said. The boy started, but there was nothing but confusion in his eyes. "I've come to take you home."

"I don't have a home," the boy said defiantly.

"You do," said Dumas. "Would you like me to show it to you?" The boy stared at him with distrust. Dumas pulled a memory crystal and an energy pack from the pocket of his coat.

There had been no way to get hold of Hesma's memory record. It had been sent home to his family on Greecia. Knowing of his deep love for his home planet, Soreto had suggested this alternative: each of them had recorded memories of their own for Hesma, images of Greecia. Islands, oceans, mountains, cities, forests and farmlands.

Dumas knelt down before the boy and activated the crystal. Castor froze as the series of remembered scenes played out in his mind. When they had finished, he stood unmoving.

"Hesma," Dumas tried again. The boy stared at him with the eyes of a small animal facing a predator. Dumas sighed. It had failed.

"You saw the images, though, Castor," said Dumas. "That's your home. Would you like to go there?"

Very slightly, as if it was involuntary, the boy nodded.

"Good. Come on, then." Dumas walked down the corridor, Castor following at his heels. Dumas took a moment to pull his parka shut before opening the outer door and stepping into the fury of the Antarctic storm.

The door slammed shut behind him. Dumas seized the door handle, but it was locked. He pounded on the door, but nobody came.

* * *

Inside the base, the boy slowly backed away from the locked door, hearing the thumps of Dumas's fists against it.

"I trusted you once before," Hesma said.


	23. Chapter 23 Unforeseen

Chapter 23: Unforeseen

Dumas swore. He ought to have worn his bodysuit under the designer outfit, even if it did ruin the lines. Still, he was not a complete idiot. The bodysuit was in the escape pod. He made his way to the pod through the killing winds, away from the shelter of the station. The parka did little to shield his face or bare hands, and did nothing at all to protect his thinly clad legs, but he managed to get to the pod and activated the hatch control.

A message flashed: Not Recognized. The hatch did not open.

Somebody had coded a recognition lock on the escape pod.

Dumas tried again and again to open the hatch, with the same result. Inside were shelter, protection, warmth and life. He was left out in the cold.

The backs of his legs were numb and nerveless already where the wind was hitting them. His only hope of survival now was to get back to Sei station. He turned into the wind and it howled in his face, scouring his skin and eyes with glasslike ice fragments that filled the hood, melted cold against his ears, and dripped down his neck. He staggered into the sheltering wall, where the wind was less fierce, and found the door again. It was still locked. He didn't know where any other door might be. He pounded and pounded on this one with his fists, as the wind drained the life from his body

* * *

Hesma stumbled through Sei station, his mind a numbed blur. How had it come to this? Why was he here? Their journey had ended. He was…dead.

It was supposed to be over.

What sick cosmic joke had brought him back again? And put him on Earth again? And sent Dumas against him again?

Before Hesma could get his mental bearings, a hand seized his shoulder.

"Where have you BEEN?" Doctor Mellert demanded. "Don't you know everyone's waiting for you?" She rushed him along a corridor.

"But I have to find…Tina…" No, Tina had been found. The facts of his current life, Castor's life, returned to him. "Pollux, I need to find Pollux—"

"After the demonstration," Mellert ordered. They arrived at the hangar, and Mellert took a moment to compose her facial expression before they entered the room.

The hurry had been pointless in any case. Randolph Phelps was busy making a speech. It was all about Brightwater Industries, and Hesma was sure Phelps was good for at least another fifteen minutes of self-congratulatory rhetoric. Mellert pushed her way to stand beside Phelps, Castor held before her on display, her hands clutching his shoulders like the talons of a harpy.

Hesma took in the sight of Castor's generator. Even now, he couldn't help being proud of what Castor had accomplished, as if he was the child's father, instead of the child's own spirit.

Of course, the machine could only have been designed by either a completely insane sociopath, or a child too young to understand the magnitude of the atrocity he was about to commit.

Now Phelps was talking about Castor and his achievements, and the patents Brightwater held in his name. Mellert's hands relaxed on his shoulders slightly. She would not be pleased when he put an end to this pompous occasion.

Because he must. Castor had designed the generator to channel power from the Zone. While that might or might not be dangerous in and of itself, Castor had carefully calculated the direction of the power dispersal and built his generator upside down. When activated, a beam of pure Orsel energy would shoot down into the sea, and into the bedrock under the Antarctic Ocean. The full power of the Zone would heat the ocean floor white-hot, bringing the sea to a boil, causing huge ice melts, and earthquakes and tsunamis all over the planet. When Antarctica's ice had boiled away, most of Earth's land would be under water.

Obviously, that had to be prevented. It would be murder on a global scale. Hesma wasn't a murderer.

Was he?

Antarctica could be so cold…

"…and with a continued tradition of innovation and responsibility, Brightwater will lead the planet into a brighter and more sustainable future. Mr. Weaver, would you care to say a few words before turning on the juice?"

The entire room focused on him, eyes staring from every direction. For a moment Hesma stared back. Then he twisted out of Mellert's grip and ran for the door and through it. He ran as fast as he could, back to the exit corridor, back to the door.

Someone was sill thumping on that door, very weakly.

Hesma threw it open, and in a blast of icy wind and snow, Dumas fell through.

* * *

"Well, it seems our young genius has a touch of stage fright," Doctor Mellert said cheerfully. There was an indulgent chuckle from the audience. She was going to kill the kid when she got her hands on him.

Mellert approached the control panel and started prodding at it. Blast, why couldn't Castor have provided a clearly marked 'on' button?

* * *

Dumas lay in the corridor. The freezing room felt almost warm by comparison with the outdoors. There were entire sections of his body he could feel nothing in any more. And the ones he could feel, hurt.

Castor had backed away from him as far as he could in the little room, and was staring at him again as if he were some sort of dangerous venomous reptile.

The feeling began to come back to Dumas's fingers. They were on fire with stabbing needles. He weakly sat up.

Suddenly the floor vibrated, and the ice under their feet glowed. The little boy's face went white.

"They've activated the machine," he said.

"The machine," said Dumas dully. Hadn't Palza said something about Castor building something dangerous? And hadn't Hasmodai, though clearly of questionable sanity, said something about it opening the Zone? "How do we turn it off?"

"We don't," said Castor. "It was designed NOT to turn off. But I think Castor may have forgotten about the fact that we're on an ice island, and not allowed for melt time and refraction. We need to get out of here, right now. How did you get to the island, Dumas?"

"Escape pod," said Dumas. "But I'm locked out of it. Someone programmed a recognition lock on the hatch."

"Give me your energy pack," Castor ordered. Dumas fumbled in his pocket until the boy grew impatient and took it himself. "Come on," Castor said. "On your feet. There's no time to lie there and warm up. The island is melting out from under us as we speak!"

Dumas staggered up. "Ah, not again," he said as Castor opened the door to the storm and dragged him into it.

They made their way to the pod. Castor pressed the energy pack against the hatch and had it open in seconds. Dumas collapsed gratefully into the copilot's seat as Castor closed the hatch and started the pod engine.

"Sloppy work," said the boy. "Must have been Tarlant. Never let him lock anything important."

"So, are you Hesma again?" The boy only gave him a sour, suspicious look and took off.

The pod circled the island. Below, Dumas could see that the people were hastily evacuating the station already, piling into motorized inflatable boats and being taken to the large ship anchored nearby.

The whole island sparked and flickered with glowing energy like a fantastically huge gem, sending off beams into the ocean at extraordinary angles.

"It looks…it looks…"

"Unless it destroys itself when it destroys the island, it looks like the end of the world," said Hesma sharply. "Do you have another vessel nearby? Did you bring any weapons? WHY is there no scanning equipment in this pod?" He snarled with frustration.

If it is Armageddon, thought Dumas, staring at the glowing island, at least it's beautiful.

* * *

Hasmodai leaned on the rail of the hovercraft, head resting against the clear canopy that shielded them from the bitterness outside. The sea was black and cold. There was nothing visible below the surface.

But down there, he knew, unless it had all been the product of a damaged brain, lay the Atalanta. Down there, unless she had been the figment of a tormented imagination, his soul mate slept and waited to return to a home two hundred million light years away.

He ignored the well-meant inquiries as to how he was, ignored the questions about where he had been. He didn't know the answers, not for certain any more. Where he was now, it seemed, was reality. Where he had been, real or not, was his own and Pirya's private world.

Not too far away floated Sei Station on its island of ice. It had been decided to follow Dumas, so that they would be close at hand to lend aid if it was needed. With the pod no longer equipped with scanning controls, Dumas might otherwise find it difficult to make his way back to the ship.

Hasmodai felt someone come to stand behind him. He felt the pressure of a hand on his shoulder. He kept staring down into the sea.

"Agi, I think you need to come look at this," Soreto called, and the hand and the presence were removed.

"What is it?"

"The scanners are showing some sort of energy surge from the island."

"Oh, no! He's activated it!" Palza's voice.

Hasmodai raised his eyes to Sei Station Island. The ice was lit from within, flickering with blue luminescence. Spears of jagged light shot off into the sea.

That's not how it's supposed to work, Hasmodai thought. Not if it's Poromet's generator. He knew, he had pieced together the original himself, just because he had wanted to understand how it worked. He had even considered activating it, just for a moment, to charge the Atalanta's energy cells—releasing a little Orsel from Earth's zone might actually alleviate the current overcharge—but Pirya had been so furious that he was playing with the generator at all that he hadn't dared even suggest it.

Unless someone shut down whatever Hesma had built, Hasmodai supposed Earth was in for another ice age. He sighed and looked down into the sea again. Would the Atalanta charge in time, or would it be stuck here through another twenty thousand years or so? If it existed.

The spears of Orsel from the station lit up the ocean like an underwater lightning storm, sending a blue glow through every iceberg. In the flickerings, he could almost imagine he saw the Atalanta, the radial pattern of ambient power collectors scoring its arched hull like the stripes of a sea urchin.

A sizzle of energy shot from Sei Station to crackle over a rounded shape below. He COULD see the Atalanta. Whether it had drifted here, or whether it had been attracted to and drawn by the power being emitted, it was here, just beneath them. And appeared to be growing larger.

"We have to move the ship!" he shouted.

The others, clustered around the scanner display, stared at him.

"We have to move!" he shouted again. "The Atalanta is rising! The cells have been charged by the Orsel coming off the station!"

Seth turned to Palza. "I thought you fixed his head."

"So did I" Palza had Hesma's scanner out again and was pointing it at him, frowning.

"We have to go NOW!"

"All right, all right," Seth said, after Agi had given him a nod. He took the wheel of the hovercraft and powered the engines.

"Hurry!"

"Where are we going?"

"ANYWHERE!"

Seth gunned the engine, shaking his head.

"FASTER!"

Seth accelerated. "If you're in such a hurry, why didn't you just take the wheel yourself?"

It hadn't actually occurred to Hasmodai. He shrugged. "You're the man of action, Lord Seth. I'm busy doing all the thinking."

"I'm not sure I like the implication—HEY! HEY!"

"Everyone, strap yourselves in!"

Under the hovercraft, the sea began to surge and curl away from the rising hull. They were being pushed by the tide, sliding out of control over the rising ship. They went over the edge, plunging down into the ocean, and bobbing to the surface, protected from swamping by the sealed canopy. The sea rushed in to fill the hole the Atalanta had left, taking them with it, nearly smashing the hovercraft against the Atalanta's still emerging sensor tail. They were left spinning as a huge wave radiated outward to lift and tumble the icebergs.

When the wave hit Sei Station Island, the fractured, stressed ice gave way. The island broke into pieces, and as the segment containing the station slowly rolled over, Hasmodai saw a beam of pure blue light lift from the waves and rotate to point upward.

Yes, Hasmodai thought. That's how it's supposed to look.

And as the Atalanta flew by overhead, the beam moved across its hull, pervading the ship with its energy, until it penetrated to the very heart of the vessel, to the place where Poromet's generator sat waiting silently.

And the world tore apart.


	24. Chapter 24 Coalescence

Chapter 24: Coalescence

Agi had no idea what to do about Hasmodai. He had heard bits of his ranting and paranoia, had been told the entire story by Soreto, and knew that Hasmodai had been healed now, at least physically.

But he kept himself apart from the group, refused to answer any questions, and kept staring into the ocean with haunted eyes, like some ancient sailor who has heard the Sirens calling. Agi hoped Hasmodai wasn't thinking of throwing himself overboard. The water was cold here, Agi knew from experience.

"Agi, I think you need to come look at this." Soreto was at the scanner, and something was flashing on the display. The rest of the team looked at him expectantly, but Agi didn't feel any pressure. He knew they could take care of themselves if they had to. He was barely up and dressed, and was planning to take things easy for a while.

"What is it?"

"The scanners are showing some sort of energy surge from the island."

"Oh, no! He's activated it!" said Palza.

Castor's machine. Agi frowned at the display. "What exactly does this machine do?"

"All I'm sure of is that it's something destructive," Palza said. "Catastrophically destructive."

"Hasmodai was under the impression it was a generator meant to channel energy from the Zone," said Soreto quietly. "But he wasn't rational at the time."

Agi frowned. A source of power had been just what Titas had originally hoped for from their scientific efforts. If anyone could have developed that concept into something practical, it was Hesma.

Agi turned to call Hasmodai, hoping that the problem would snap him out of his woolgathering for a while, but Hasmodai was already backing away from the railing, a look of horror on his face.

"We have to move the ship!" Hasmodai shouted. When nobody moved, he continued, "We have to move! The Atalanta is rising! The cells have been charged by the Orsel coming off the station!"

Agi exchanged a quick glance with Soreto, Mel and Tarlant, saw the same pain and sorrow in their eyes as he felt. Palza had warned them that Hasmodai might never fully recover. His injuries had been left too long untreated.

"I thought you fixed his head," Seth said to Palza.

"So did I."

"We have to go NOW!" Hasmodai was looking positively frantic. Agi nodded to Seth. It would do no harm to move the ship, and it might calm Hasmodai while they worked on the Sei Station problem.

"All right, all right." Seth started the engine.

"Hurry!"

Agi turned back to the scanner. "It looks like the island is being evacuated. You said there's a sonic cannon aboard? Could we take the generator out with that?"

"We could try," Soreto said. "But destroying the generator while the Zone is open might cause an even more serious—"

The ship lurched upward, as if being nudged by a whale. Agi could feel the vessel turning, out of control.

"Everyone, strap yourselves in!" Agi ordered. He buckled his own harness as the others scrambled for safety. The hovercraft began to tilt, and the robots, unbidden, locked themselves to the deck, securely holding Tarlant and Tina, who had not yet managed to attach their restraints.

The ship fell, plunging into the sea before emerging in a maelstrom of swirling waves. Agi thought for a moment that they had been driven into the shadow of an iceberg, but then saw that the enormous, blue-white object over them was a ship, an ancient spaceship from Greecia. He stared at the scanner to confirm the vision in his eyes, but the scanner showed nothing.

The ship rose completely from the sea, moving away to pass over Sei Station, and as it did, the island broke apart and rolled over, and a beam of pure blue energy cut into the ancient starship.

Agi suddenly found himself on the silent, dark shore again. But there was something wrong: there were two shores here, like a double image he could not focus, moving together, then apart, each with its own pattern of waves running up and down the beach. He struggled to bring his eyes into cooperation, to join the two views into a single image.

A new vision appeared in his mind, the image of two soap bubbles. They drifted together, touched, melded…and then the wall that separated them broke, leaving one single, shining bubble.

Agi was torn away from that image, caught up in a shrieking hurricane. The wind whipped him, carrying him as swiftly and as helplessly as if he had been made of paper. He struggled in a panic for something to hold onto, but there was nothing, nothing but the wind and the emptiness and occasionally, the face of some other soul caught in the whirlwind and as helpless as he.

There was no direction and no sense as the tempest swirled in a wild dance of complete chaos.

Agi struggled to clear and calm his own mind as he was torn through the violent confusion. The storm was like the silent shore, he told himself. It was only a metaphor. It was something in his own mind.

And his mind was his to control.

Agi concentrated, made a circle of quiet around himself, created in his mind a small patch of the silent beach to stand upon. Around him the storm still screamed and howled, but it did not touch him in his circle of calm.

Agi looked into the chaos and called his people to him. With every force of command he could muster, he sent his summons into the raging turmoil around him.

Soreto came to him at once, and Belle, emerging from the mayhem to enter his circle. It grew around them, three now, touching, in a small and fragile patch of safety.

Agi sent out his summons again. Tina entered the circle, walking calmly, Seth behind her. Mel and Palza came, already together, already holding each other.

With each new arrival, the circle grew and the calm spread.

Agi called again, and Tarlant appeared, flanked by strangers, a man and woman of Greecia. Agi stared at them for a while, wondering, and suddenly realized they were the souls currently animating the robots.

Hesma and Dumas appeared, and joined the circle. Cooks entered, his face bewildered. Agi had nearly forgotten the wounded detective was on the ship.

Agi sent out his summons again. Nobody else approached. Hasmodai had still not come to them. He had always been the weakest of the group, Agi knew, unable to stand against the Enma, slow to react, nearly useless in a fight. And now even his mind was damaged. Did he not have the strength to come to them?

Agi firmly planted his feet in the circle of calm and sent his mind out searching in the storm. Maintaining the peace around him was a struggle as he pushed against the chaos, wild gusts trying to snatch him up and tear him away.

He saw faces flying past him, souls out of control, tumbling through the void. Most were unfamiliar. Some he knew—friends and family, from this lifetime and others, from Earth and from Greecia. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters. He saw faces he thought he knew, souls that felt familiar, but who he could not remember.

At last he found Hasmodai, and he shouted his name into the wind, preparing to go after his lost and struggling comrade.

Then he realized, Hasmodai was not being helplessly torn by the chaos. He stood alone, in his own circle of quiet, not even looking Agi's way, and was reaching out a hand in another direction. Someone took that hand. A stranger, a woman Agi had never seen. And the two of them stood there together.

"HASMODAI!" Agi shouted again into the storm. Hasmodai turned. Agi held a hand out to him.

Hasmodai looked at it, and hesitated.

In that hesitation, Agi realized that Hasmodai was no longer his to command. Agi had lost him, failed him somehow unknowing, the way he had lost Palza.

But he kept holding his hand out.

And, after a little while, Hasmodai took it, and he and the stranger were drawn into the circle.

And the circle was complete.

The calm spread slowly from the place where Agi stood with his team, extending over the dark, silent beach. Others joined them as the chaos withdrew and stilled: Agi saw his mother, several of his mothers and fathers around him. Each member of his team was surrounded by a web of connections to other souls. Flo's father was there, Thoma's parents and Cooks's grandfather. Hesma's families from Greecia, Wattford, and many other places. Agi saw Soran, Goto, Reda, Titas, even Georca standing by Tina, Seth and Dumas. Everyone he had ever known from every one of his lives, and millions of strangers besides, all touching, all joined, all spreading the circle.

And he felt a connection, a love for each and every one of them, and he felt it returned. Even the most distant of strangers, Ian realized, is eventually attached to us somehow.

And when the last of the storm had faded away in the distance, Agi found himself standing on a silent, dark beach once more. Not alone this time, his friends were with him now. Soreto. Hasmodai. Tarlant. Mel. Palza. Hesma. Dumas. Tina. Seth.

They stood in the stillness, still holding hands in a circle.

Soreto gasped as tall, dark shapes rose from the mists around them, towering figures. The Enma.

It was time, Ian knew. Time to do what the Enma had demanded of him. It was time to lead his people into the land of death.

No.

To lead them out of it.

Agi turned away from the silent shore and walked. And they all came with him, because it was what they always did. He was their leader.

* * *

Dumas blinked, struggling to clear his mind of the strange illusion that had just left him. Had he fallen asleep? He remembered a dream, a good dream, something about a storm, and shelter from it.

Hesma was shaking his head blurrily too, rubbing his eyes-

The pod struck an iceberg while he was still fuddled, and they went down. Water started seeping in through the cracked hull. Hesma tried to restart the engine, but it wouldn't respond.

Dumas reached behind the seat and pulled out the white bodysuit he had stored there. "Here," he said. "It's going to be a little big, but I think you might need this." He held the suit out to Hesma.

Hesma looked at him strangely.

"I owe you a life," Dumas said.

Hesma took the bodysuit and started to get into it. Doesn't it just figure, thought Dumas. Just when living was starting to look like a good thing.

He looked down at the rising water and laughed.

"What?" Hesma asked.

"If I could feel my feet, I bet this water would be really cold."


	25. Chapter 25 A Warm Light

Chapter 25: A Warm Light

The sunset was beautiful from Kuril Island, the sky glowing orange and the red sun sinking into the mist of the horizon. It was visible from the window, which was thrown open. A soft breeze drifted into the room.

The Rugen Institute had a hospital on the island, one which not only served the needs of its workers and researchers, but offered experimental treatments to those willing to take the risk involved.

Agi put his hands in his pockets and looked out the window. The man lying in the bed had a swath of bandages covering what remained of his nose. More bandages encased his ears and his hands. And his feet really ought to both have been amputated.

But there was no point, Agi knew. Dumas would not be using this body for much longer.

"It wasn't my fault," Dumas said sulkily through the bandages.

"Of course not."

"How was I supposed to know about the robots?"

"Nobody blames you, Dumas. We've contacted Greecia, and Goto has promised that production of the cores will stop immediately. All the cortical centers at the Rugen institute are being destroyed and the souls released into the Zone."

"But won't that make the Orsel imbalance worse?"

"There is no Orsel imbalance anymore. Earth's Zone and Greecia's Zone have merged. Our planets share a single Zone, now."

Dumas was silent for a moment. "Explain to me exactly how that happened again," he ordered.

"Exactly, we don't know," said Agi. "It's possible that our passages from Greecia to Earth through the Zone actually did weaken or damage the barrier between the two Zones. Or at least brought the barriers in contact. Or it could be that the imbalance, the displaced souls trying to return to the proper Zone did the damage. It's even possible there was no original damage at all. In any case, as far as we can surmise, when the generator on Sei Station projected a beam of Orsel energy into the generator Hasmodai claims was on...on the Atalanta—" Dumas snorted "—it closed some sort of circuit or opened a portal which resulted in the barrier between the Zones collapsing, resulting in their conjugating into one."

Dumas sighed. After a few minutes of silence, he said, "So, how are you planning to fix it?"

"I'm not," said Agi. Even if they had a clue how to separate the Zones, Agi would not have wonted it done. He cared for too many people on both planets. He hoped the union would be permanent, that they would all share their worlds and their afterworlds together, forever.

"Can't get used to your hair being white again," Dumas grumbled. Agi only smiled. They had all emerged from the Enma's quiet shore with their Greecian appearances restored.

"How did I get here?" Dumas asked. "I was going down with the ship, last I remember."

"Hesma managed to drag you out of the pod and onto the ice," said Agi. "Castor and Pollux apparently have some sort of mental bond between them, and Palza knew his brother was in trouble, and where to find him. Mel flew him out to you in the utility skimmer—"

"Mel?" said Dumas. "The skimmer has a cockpit that would make a rat feel cramped!"

"She stepped into it without even flinching," said Agi. The thought still amazed him. "Maybe because Palza got in first."

"And about the crisis on Greecia…"

"It's ended. The moment the barrier between the Zones broke, the imbalance ended and everything normalized. You're considered something of a hero on Greecia."

"And what do we do about Brightwater? Someone's got to do something about Hesma's patents."

"Between the destruction of their Antarctic facilities, and the fact that there's no more need for their climate control services, Brightwater is on the ropes. Mel's been buying up stock on your behalf at bargain prices, and thinks we should be poised for a hostile takeover within the month."

"I could get to like Mel. Explain to me again," Dumas said, "how the Zone problem got solved."

Agi did.

"I still don't understand it," Dumas grumbled.

"Well, you're not a scientist," said Agi. And we don't really understand it either, he didn't add. "Besides, you're tired. We can talk again in the morning."

"I still think everyone should go back through the Zone," said Dumas. "Just in case."

"It won't make any difference," said Agi.

"It will make me feel more secure."

"Dumas, we don't all plan to return to Greecia."

"Well, some of you, anyway."

And since Dumas was too ill and too untrained to really understand, and because he was the ruler of Greecia, and because he had been willing to give his life for Hesma's, Agi did not argue any longer.

Soreto had been waiting outside. Her eyes were the blue of the Greecian sea again, too, and her hair silver white. "How is he?"

"Not well at all," said Agi. "But he's only got another day to hold on. The spirit portal is almost complete."

"You're not planning to return to Greecia, are you?"

"Of course not," said Agi. "Are you?"

"I chose to stay last time, I don't know why I would change my mind," she said. A look of confusion crossed her face. "I did choose to stay last time…didn't I?"

"You did," said Agi. "We all did. I'll explain it to you later. How is Hasmodai?"

"Palza wants him kept under observation, but I don't think anything's particularly wrong with him. He seems a bit distracted, though. You should talk to him."

"I never know what to say to Hasmodai any more," said Agi. "Do you think that could actually have been the Atalanta? Do you think that's where he was when he was missing?"

"I asked him straight out," said Soreto. "He just smiled at me."

They walked up a flight of stairs, past a darkened room. Agi looked in, and saw Hasmodai silhouetted in the window, leaning against the frame. He was no longer staring at the sea, but up at the first appearing stars of the night.

Agi walked on.

He entered another room, where another man lay on the bed, an array of complicated machines hooked up to his body.

"Inspector Cooks," said Agi. "How are you feeling?"

"I've been better," the detective said. "Can't see what the point is of all these machines. It's going to end the same way in any case."

Agi couldn't argue. "Is there anything I can do for you? Anything you need?"

"Answers," said Cooks. "Tell me what's going on. What it all means. Don't let me die still wondering."

Agi sat down by the bed, took the detective's hand, and looked into his desperate eyes.

"Far away, on the other side of the Pleiades, two hundred million light years away, there is a beautiful water planet called Greecia. That's where I was born. On that planet is a new body, waiting for me. I won't be needing it. Would you like to have it? I think you'll find all your answers on Greecia, and probably quite a few new mysteries."

The silence went on so long Agi wondered if the detective had understood him.

Finally Cooks said, "You know, I always planned to travel after I retired."

Agi, Mel, Soreto and Tarlant worked all the next day to build the spirit portal. It was not very different from the transference devices they had created so many times on Earth, and it was easy to fall into the familiar patterns of teamwork that had kept them moving forward through their long first quest. Palza's objections had to be dealt with repeatedly, though, and they kept assuring him that this would be, absolutely, the very last time.

In the evening, when the Institute's researchers and workforce had gone to their homes for the night, they gathered on a grassy hill under the stars, around the portal, its light reflecting off their faces. They held hands, as they had on the dark shore, standing together silently. Not far away, the waves crashed on the rocks, and the moon slowly rose over the sea.

"Well?" said Dumas at last. In spite of his injuries, he was dressed in one of the elegant silk suits he favored, and wore his wrap-around dark glasses over his bandages. He could barely hobble, but had refused crutches or a wheelchair or even a cane. "If nobody trusts me, I suppose I could go first."

"You said that there are bodies prepared for each of us?" Agi asked.

"Yes, an approximately eleven-year-old body for each of you, created and artificially grown from your own natural genetic material. A real body, not a second-rate construct made of artificial matter. I think we all know that technology was a dead end."

They stood silent a moment longer.

Hesma stepped forward. He walked to the beam of the portal, and as he stepped into it, he turned and opened his mouth as if to speak. But he was too late: the body of Castor Weaver slumped gently to the ground, empty. The robot Bubble lifted the child's body and gently laid it on one of the carts they had prepared.

"That should probably be destroyed," Dumas said. "Someday, someone might start poking around and trying to find out what became of the Weaver twins."

"No," said Agi. "Hesma's body will be preserved."

"Ten to one he'll spend a month on Greecia and be homesick for Earth again," said Tarlant.

"I don't know," said Palza. "He feels pretty happy."

"Do you still have your connection to him?" Soreto asked.

"I suppose once you're connected, you're always connected," said Palza. "Hesma's my brother now. Mel?"

Mel and Soreto shared one last hug, and the couple made their farewells.

"There's no need to preserve our bodies, I will never be doing this again," Palza said firmly. They stepped into the beam. Pollux Weaver and Gherta Hawksbee slumped to the grass.

"We'll preserve them anyway," Agi said. "Just in case. It's good that they'll have a chance to spend their lives together at last."

"I notice Mel didn't say she wouldn't visit," said Soreto. "I hope they don't fight over it. In any case, I have a body on Greecia, I can always visit them."

"Inspector Cooks, are you ready?" Agi asked. Cooks didn't answer. He was unconscious, his body already slipping into death. They wheeled him under the beam, and Nguyen Hue Cooks breathed his last breath on Earth. He had signed papers during the day requesting that the mechanical life support be ended. In the morning he would be found in his hospital room, dead of terminal cancer.

Agi hoped he would be happy on Greecia.

"Anyone else?" Dumas asked. "Tina?"

She smiled. "You know my answer, Dumas."

"Lord Seth? I know your father would love to see you again. He's been good to me."

Seth looked at Tina. Then he looked out to sea, toward the island with the 200-year-old shrine, and the couple who were waiting for their son to return.

"Tell him, maybe in a couple of years," said Seth. "Hey, I can't leave now—I have my own boat!"

Dumas looked toward the remaining scientists.

One stepped forward.

"Ah, Hasmodai, no!" said Tarlant softly.

Hasmodai turned back, and they could see from the pain in his face how difficult this was for him. "I'm sorry," he said. "I think Greecia needs Hasmodai more than Earth needs Teo."

Soreto stepped forward and put her arms around him. They held each other for a minute. Tarlant hugged him next, saying, "You're the only one around here who knows how to have any fun."

"I'll miss you, too, Tarlant."

Agi took Hasmodai's hand, shook it firmly. "Thank you," he said, "for all your hard work." He meant it, meant more than that, and he felt sure Hasmodai understood.

Hasmodai moved toward the portal. Halfway there, he stopped and looked back. "After just a couple of years on Greecia, you'll be…you'll be…" Tears started running down his face.

"But think how much comfort it will be for us, knowing that Hasmodai will be living on, carrying our memories for centuries after we're gone," said Agi.

"And you can always visit us," said Soreto. "You can take a couple of weeks off from Greecia and spend an entire year."

"We'll be glad to see you any time," said Tarlant. "Don't wait too long."

Hasmodai turned away again. When he reached the portal, he looked at them once more, wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, and said, "The time difference between our planets is really created by the relativity between time and speed of motion. Given modern matter-transference technology, it shouldn't really be all that difficult to adjust the positions and orbital velocity of our systems without throwing off anything else particularly significant, and bring our rates of temporal progression to a more analogous state."

Hasmodai turned to look at the spirit portal. In nine years, the Atalanta should reach Greecia. He would be twenty years old. It was a good age. He stepped into the light.

Teo's body slipped to the grass. They would preserve it. Hasmodai would definitely be back.

As Squeak collected the empty shell, Dumas slowly peeled off his dark glasses to reveal an expression of horror.

"Did that man just declare an intent to rearrange the foundations of the cosmos in order to spend a little more time with his friends?" Dumas demanded. "I can't tell you how grateful I am that he will be on Greecia, where I can keep an eye on him. Anyone else?"

When nobody else moved, Dumas said, "Just me, then. Tina?" He held a hand out, and Tina stepped forward, hugged her brother. Then Dumas turned and hobbled toward the portal.

"You needn't preserve this wreck," he said. "I won't be using it again. But don't think you won't be seeing Damien any more. I will have a new Earth body constructed as quickly as possible, even if I'm forced to resort to artificial matter. I'm not leaving you here entirely unsupervised. You all bear watching. You're like…children."

"Yes, your Highness," said Agi, suppressing a smile. "Thank you."

And Dumas stepped into the light.

The night's work was not yet over. With heavy hearts, they returned with the bodies to the Rugen Institute, and Agi and Soreto began the preservation process.

Tarlant took Bubble and Squeak to a quiet place on the shore of the sea, Wonder waddling along behind them.

"Thank you," Tarlant said, "for staying with us until the end." He deactivated them then, removed their cortical centers, and freed the souls within.

* * *

Ian Cole slept late the next morning. As he got dressed, he heard his sister pounding on the door. "Hurry, Ian, you'll miss the ferry!"

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, Belle, I'm coming," he said. Quickly packing his things, he left the guest room.

As they walked to the dock, Ian turned back to look at the Rugen Institute. It felt like a warm and familiar place, now, as if he had a second home.

"Come oooon, Ian!" Belle said, rushing onto the ferry. "I can't WAIT to get home. I can't believe how BORING this place has been."

Ian smiled slightly as he walked onto the boat. Captain Thoma looked up from Helga's sketch, and said, "Whoa, another one with white hair! What, was it like a gang initiation or something?"

"Or something," Ian agreed. Thoma's hair was black again, Helga's its usual brown. Ian looked around, and saw Flo and Kalie sitting together with Kalie's old dog. Both of them had hair like snow and eyes like the sea.

"So, how did the scholarship thing go?" Captain Thoma asked. "Did you have to take a lot of tests?"

"I…I don't really remember," said Helga, frowning.

Ian walked to the two white-haired children. He sat beside Flo. The minute he did, Belle caught his arm. "Ian, come look, there's a sea turtle on the beach!"

"Not right now, Belle," Ian said. "Why don't you go ask Captain Thoma to teach you how to drive the boat?"

Belle made a face, but moved off, saying over her shoulder, "By the way, Ian, you know my friend May? I really want you to meet her big sister. She's the vocalist and lead guitarist in a rock group, and she's really cool and she's a great artist, too. She designed all her own tattoos."

Ian managed to keep a straight face as Belle walked away, and turned to see Flo and Kalie were doing the same.

"You remember?" Agi asked.

"Everything," said Tarlant. "How long do you think it will last?"

"I don't know."

"I don't want to forget," said Soreto. "I don't want to lose you again—either of you."

"Even if we do forget, we'll meet again," said Agi. "We're the new co-directors of the Rugen Institute."

"Why do you think we still remember?" Tarlant asked. "Do you think it's a reward from the Enma for fixing the Orsel imbalance problem? Or that they're maybe keeping us ready for more work?"

"Or maybe they think we do more damage when we don't realize what we're doing," said Agi.

"We don't really know anything about the Enma," said Soreto. "We don't know if it's a they or an it, or if it thinks or feels or plans…"

"The more we learn, the more we know we don't know," said Agi.

"Maybe that could be our next research project," said Tarlant enthusiastically. "We could study the Enma, find out more about them, maybe learn how they…what?"

"I think that's just a little more ambitious a project than I'm ready for at the moment," said Soreto.

"Right," said Agi. "I hear Doctor Mellish is running some sort of study on algae growth patterns. I may see if I can get in on that."

Tarlant sighed. After a while he said, "I suppose I ought to drop out of the Robot Wars competition this year. It would hardly be fair."

Agi quietly thought about Ian's plans…his goal to study astrophysics, his intention to find a part-time job on Sanceli Island. If his memories persisted, then his two lives, like the Zones, would have to merge and become one somehow.

Agi thought…Ian thought it might be a very interesting way to live


	26. Chapter 26 Epilog: Melody of Love

Chapter 26 Epilog: Melody of Love

Eight Months Later

"Welcome aboard Mister Cole!"

"Good morning, Captain. Thanks for coming to pick me up." He had told Thoma over and over that it was still fine to call him Ian, but as more people called him Mr. Cole every day, he was getting used to it. "The Star Princess has new rails, doesn't she?"

"Yeah, and I've replaced the bumpers as well. Is she looking sharp, or what? I'm thinking of changing the hull, next, giving her a little more speed, you know?"

Ian had wanted the Rugen Institute to buy Thoma a new boat, but Tarlant had objected. "He doesn't want a new boat, he wants to putter with the old boat!" he had insisted, and in the end, Agi and Soreto decided he was the most likely to understand the situation. Tarlant did slip aboard the Princess one night, though, and made some changes to the engine, making it much less likely to explode and kill everyone on board. And they all kept an eye on Thoma and found work for him. He was helping support his family, after all.

The ferry chugged away from Sanceli Island along the mainland coast. "Must be nice to be the director of the company," Thoma said. "You can take a vacation whenever you like, eh Boss?"

"The Institute can get along very well without me. People need to be reminded of that frequently," said Ian. "Especially me."

He leaned on the rail and watched the Eastern Mainland passing by.

"Excuse me, Mr. Cole, would you mind answering a few questions?"

Ian jumped slightly, and stared at the eager young stranger behind him. "Who are you?"

"I'm Wilbur Hutch of the Clairmont Clamor. You're Ian Cole, aren't you? One of the directors of Rugen-Brightwater?"

"If you know that, then you should know I don't give interviews," said Ian.

"Hey! A stowaway!" Thoma said indignantly. "Should I throw him overboard, Mister Cole?"

"Not yet," Ian sighed. "Wait till we're nearer to the shore. All right, Hutch, ask your questions, but I don't promise I'll answer."

"Great!" said the reporter. "Mr. Cole, is it true that some sort of energy experiment at Brightwater's Antarctic outpost went bad and was responsible for the Lost Moment?"

The Lost Moment was what they had called it, that instant when the Zones had come together, and everyone on Earth had blinked. Nobody on this planet knew what had caused it, apart from the three co-directors of the Rugen Institute, but there had been enough accidents and odd occurrences as resulting from the brief distraction to make the Lost Moment a sort of Bermuda Triangle in time.

"I have no idea," said Ian. "We hadn't acquired Brightwater at that time, I wasn't even the director of the Rugen Institute, and the remains of the station are completely burned out and under the Antarctic sea."

"But eyewitnesses say that your benefactor, Damien, was seen on the station that day," said Hutch.

"Damien is a very active man," said Ian. "He goes a lot of places."

"He hasn't been seen lately, though. Any idea of his whereabouts?"

"No comment."

"It's been said that your hair, and the hair of your co-directors, went white overnight. Would you care to tell us what horrifying experience caused that?"

"My hair has been this color off and on all my life," said Ian. "So has theirs. It's a rare genetic condition, one which Damien and Doctor Hawksbee shared, and the Rugen Institute called us in to help study it."

"Speaking of Doctor Hawksbee, it was quite a surprise when she suddenly turned over the company to you and vanished. Some people say she's cryogenically frozen herself."

"Actually, we have her pickled in a big jar in the basement, right between the Weaver twins and the crashed alien spacecraft."

Hutch chuckled. "I believe that a young man, one of the Institute's scholarship students, disappeared the same night as Hawksbee. Is there a scandal there? A May-December romance and elopement, perhaps? Could Damien be with them? A lovers' threesome-"

"Captain Thoma," Ian said. "I think we're close enough to shore, now."

There was a shout and a splash. Ian smiled as he watched the reporter wade toward the mainland. The water was warm here, in the South East Islands. He was almost tempted to jump in himself. If the reporter had the spirit of Bob Cooks (literally or figuratively) he wouldn't let a little seawater dampen his enthusiasm.

When Kuril Island came in sight, there was something unfamiliar about the shape of it.

"What's that?" Thoma demanded. "How did they put up a building that big since yesterday?"

"I think an old friend has come to visit," said Ian.

When he left the boat and mounted the stairs from the landing, he saw a thin, white-haired boy just leaving the Rugen Institute's main building.

"Hasmodai!" he called.

"Agi! Soreto said you wouldn't be here today! It's good to see you. You look…great."

From the slightly pained expression in his eyes, Ian suspected the word that had originally come to Hasmodai was 'older.' Teo's body, of course, artificially preserved, would not age except when Hasmodai was inhabiting it.

"You're looking a little pale yourself," Ian said. "I suppose we should put some sun lamps in the preservation area."

"Soreto's been bringing me up to date on all your news. Congratulations on the, um, amazing algae breakthrough."

"Thanks. What have you been up to?"

"Not much, yet," said Hasmodai. "I'm still weighing my options. It's only been a little over a week."

"Mel and Palza would probably love to have you join them in the Royal Science division."

"Oh, they're not planning to research anything interesting," said Hasmodai gloomily. "Agricultural studies, mostly. Raemos—you remember him? He's heading up this really fascinating project on time travel. But Dumas says he'll pull their funding if I so much as walk in the door."

"I'm sure something you like will turn up," said Ian. If not, well, Dumas was a planetary ruler, after all. He might eventually need a scientist without Palza's rigid ethical scruples, and would know just where to find the man.

"I might take my research skills in a different direction for a little while. I've applied to join the Royal Historical Society."

"Really?" said Ian. "I had some old friends in the Society. Maybe I could get in touch with them, ask them to sponsor you."

"Oh, no," said Hasmodai. "I couldn't let you do that. It would reflect badly on them when I'm thrown out."

Ian opened his mouth to ask, but Hasmodai went on, "Dumas has actually been very good to us all. He's funding that little world tour Hesma and Cooks are on. He even promised me a place in the royal court and a title, if I would give up my work."

"Lord Hasmodai. It sounds good. Are you tempted?"

Hasmodai gave him a reproachful look.

Ian laughed. "So, what are your plans? How long will you be on Earth?"

"I thought I'd stay the weekend," said Hasmodai. "That's fifty-four days. It'll give me time to visit Serena and Rogan, then come back here and do some personal research."

"Where Dumas can't keep an eye on you. What are you up to, Hasmodai?"

Hasmodai smiled. His smiles were full of secrets since his mysterious absence. "I may spend every weekend on Earth. Is that Thoma down by the dock?" he asked.

"Yes it is," said Ian. "If you hurry, I'm sure he'd be happy to drop you off on Natsuna Island. It's not far out of his way. You can catch the train from there."

"See you in a few days, then." Hasmodai hurried toward the boat.

"Hasmodai—Teo!" Ian called after him. "Do us a favor and go somewhere the press can take your picture, before they start sneaking onto the island and digging up the flowerbeds in search of your corpse."

"Will do, Agi!"

"And don't answer any questions! By the way, Future Hasmodai hasn't dropped in yet, so the time travel is probably a dead end."

As the boat left the dock, Ian entered the Rugen Institute, and after a quick look at the algae vats, went up to Mel's old laboratory.

Soreto was there, working at one of the consoles, and she smiled as he entered. "Agi, I didn't expect you until tomorrow!"

"I had an idea about the virtual plasma lens for the orbital telescope and couldn't wait to try it out. How's your project going?"

"The actual concept is complete," said Soreto, "but I'm still running a risk analysis on introducing the new technology to Earth before making a practical model. Tarlant called, by the way. The Rugen-Brightwater team has taken first, second and third place in Robot Wars."

"Why am I not surprised?" Ian asked.

"He says he's just coaching and financing the kids, but…" She shrugged. "Anyway, you've probably noticed the spaceship. Hasmodai's back for a visit."

"I just caught him as he left for home," Ian said. "He seems reasonably happy." Soreto nodded. "Anyway, I'm going to get to work on that lens. I may be working on it all night. Want to help?"

"I'd better not," said Soreto. "My father's been getting worried about the amount of time we spend together. He says we're too young and haven't known each other long enough to get this serious."

They shared a moment of silent amusement over this. "Did you tell him it isn't exactly a romantic relationship?" Ian asked.

"Are you sure it's not?"

And no, when she looked at him that way, he wasn't sure at all.

Habit was a hard thing to overcome, though. Breaking down the barriers they had maintained over so many lifetimes would not be easy, but there must be a scientific way to accomplish it.

The thought of conducting experiments was intriguing.

As a small one, he came to stand beside Soreto and put one arm around her shoulders, looking out the window over the sea. She relaxed against him, her arm going around his waist. It felt warm and comfortable.

The Star Princess was sailing away over waves that sparkled in the sunlight. They could still make out the shape of Thoma in the wheelhouse, could see Hasmodai relaxing on one of the benches, reading.

Together they watched as the ship sailed away.

Another leaf falls from my tree  
Another of my flowers withers  
Strange in the uncertain light  
The confused dream of my life greets me.

Dark is the emptiness that surrounds me  
But in the vaulted center, a star of comfort  
Laughs through every night  
Its path draws near and nearer

Good star that sweetens my night,  
That draws near and nearer to my destiny  
Can you feel how my heart with silent song  
Waits for you and greets you?

My view is still filled with loneliness.  
Only slowly dare I awaken to you,  
Dare I cry again, laugh again  
And put my trust in you and fate.

-Hermann Hesse

* * *

Author's notes:

Why?-My third watching of FC left me wanting so much more. Thoma and Helga's story was finished to my satisfaction, but they were not my favorite characters. It was the Children of Béfort who won my heart, with their courage, determination, teamwork, and tragic burden. It didn't seem right that they were just going to forget all those years of effort and friendship and mutual support. Poor Dumas, too, planning to kill himself after finding only the second person in the universe who cared about him. And poor Hesma, his soul trapped in Earth's zone for eternity—I just KNEW he would be doomed to live all his lives as one of those people who feel they were born on the wrong planet. I wanted to know what became of them all, including Gherta, and including Cooks. Then I found the Special Ending in the extras on Disc 6 (I had always assumed it was just a textless version of the end credits from the final episode) and finally got JUST a little more.

Then this story popped into my head, practically complete from start to finish, and I've written obsessively for six weeks, afraid it would fade before I got it down, and wandered around in a fog as my brain pondered conversations, introspections and plot points. Hope you like my version of the FC future. I know there are a couple of discrepancies and canon errors, and my take on their technology is probably way too simplified and primitive.

Special thanks to Girishia on DeviantArt, whose steady readership helped keep me motivated.

Thanks also to my Harry Pottter fanfic readers, who have patiently (TOO darn patiently) waited six weeks to find out what happens to Albert Prince. They will never read this, of course...

Agi—How can anyone not adore him? Strong, loving, spiritual, idealistic. He's a bit autocratic, but he's harder on himself than on anyone else. My prescription: he needed to learn to let go of control a little.

Soreto—Supporting, caring, sweet, and tough enough to kick butt with the best of them. Soreto is awesome in every way.

Agi/Soreto—Okay, I really hate how every time a male/female team works together, they seem to have to be shipped. What's wrong with friendship or a working partnership? But in the end…who is good enough for Soreto but Agi? And who on Earth could Agi marry and have a life with but Soreto? Some mundane housewife type? They deserve each other. Totally. Nobody else could understand what they've been through.

Hasmodai—You have to love him. Sweet, loving, brilliant, literate, sensitive. But with so many weaknesses, so susceptible to temptation. Hasmodai was a lover, not a fighter, doomed to a life which was all fighting with nobody to love. It must have been really hard on his self-respect to keep being rescued. I thought he needed an extremely poetic, slightly tragic love story of his own. He needed someone equally sensitive, but tough, to complement his failings with her strengths. Soreto was out of the question, because she is very self-sufficient, and Hasmodai, I felt, needed someone who needed him. Soreto would just have ended up taking care of him. He needed to be the one doing the rescuing for a change. I would have liked to give Pirya more POV sections (like the conniption she had when she found out Hasmodai was rebuilding the generator—heh!), but that would have destroyed the suspense over whether she might be an illusion or a figment. For some reason, in spite of his sweet nature, Hasmodai strikes me as the kind of scientist whose curiosity is completely separated from his morality. I could see him happily enjoying the challenge of creating a doomsday machine, without the slightest thought of what would happen if it was activated. I have no canon basis for that impression, though.

Hermann Hesse.- Had to look for a poem for Hasmodai, didn't I? Just thought it was almost eerie to find one so absolutely perfect for the moment when Hasmodai went aboard the Atalanta. I looked at other poets for the final poem, but found nothing that felt right, and then came across another Hesse poem so absolutely right it was scary again. The title of the first is By Night (Bei Nacht) and the second is The Beloved (Der Geliebte.) Did the translations myself.

Tarlant – He was always the brat of the group! :D It was fun forcing him into authority a little bit. I thought of having him win the Robot Wars himself (Just to make it 5 wins, a nice round number) but he is supposed to have grown up a little.

Mel/Gherta – It was a little tougher to find a niche for her. She's competent, practical, kind-hearted and as Gherta, used to wielding authority. She can also go ballistic from time to time. Fortunately she and Dumas had their issues to work through. I had fun with that!

Seth & Tina—Sorry, I know, they were just kinda THERE. But they had their story already.

Chitto—I'd have had to have killed him. Early on. He's the only really dull, one-dimensional character from the show, IMO.

Wonder—I originally planned to have her killed in the crash. There was enough tragedy going on, though.

Hesma – I just wanted to get him home. :D I had fun with his little role as the angry genius.

Palza—I think Mel could do lots better, personally.

Dumas—Totally needed to redeem himself. Giving his life for Hesma was the key. If I was really mean, I'd have let him die tragically, but what would Greecia do? And who would stop Hasmodai from accidentally destroying the universe? :D It was really fun putting him and Mel together, too. They just worked...

Belle—Hope she didn't annoy too much! Most kids can't even remember what happened when they were three. There she was, nine years old, still crying and clutching a stuffed toy over her brother's departure. I refuse to believe she was in an abusive situation (Agi would have done SOMETHING) which leaves the option that she's kind of creepy and obsessed. It was fun putting someone totally mundane among all the larger-than-life sci-fi characters. I laughed my head off whenever I wrote one of those Belle vs Soreto scenes. Especially the My Brother Is An Alien section. In the epilog, I was going to mention she's now dating one loser after another, but it didn't fit into the conversation anywhere. Soreto knows Belle is just yanking Ian's chain.

Cooks—I liked him. What can I say?

Thanks for reading!


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